George Mallory famously sought to climb Mount Everest “because it is there.”
NC State has a mountain to climb. It is not one of the Himalayas or even Mount Mitchell for that matter. The bluff that the Wolfpack must scale is in the eastern portion of North Carolina and it will not be easy.
Mother Nature has not been kind to NC State’s baseball program in recent years. The ill-fated Super Regionals of 2012 and 2016 Regional in Raleigh both were marred by rain delays.
Even the joy of a 2013 Super Regional win over Rice to advance to the College World Series was put off until the wee hours of the morning after a lengthy stoppage due to rain.
When the Wolfpack was forced to sit idly for most of Friday after completing over eight innings of action, the task of rallying against a solid, veteran Campbell team was made much tougher.
The Pack’s, 5-4, loss to the Fighting Camels means NC State will wait until Sunday to play again, with a match against the loser of Saturday’s tilt between hosts East Carolina and four-seeded Quinnipiac scheduled for noon.
It was an anomaly-squared game for Will Wilson as the All-American struggled both at the plate and in the field at the worst possible moment.
Avent lauded his best player afterward, mentioning that Wilson has handled the praise of being listed among the nation’s elite with a reassuring calm. NC State will need him to keep that calm as it approaches the mountain Sunday.
Wilson fanned four times and made three errors in the field and the Wolfpack sat for hours as the game was delayed, yet there NC State was on Saturday with the tying run on second and the winning run on first base in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The junior from Kings Mountain can help the Pack find its way back into a Super Regional but to do so he will have to tap into both his tremendous skill and ability to limit distractions from the outside.
The Pack is down but not out. All that is left now is to climb the mountain, which will require four straight wins in a hostile environment. No one in Greenville wants to see NC State succeed, sans the Wolfpack faithful that made the trip to Pitt County.
There are quality baseball teams in the regional. NC State has to simplify things and look at the challenge ahead as an opportunity instead of a burden.
“If they are hungry and want to fight, there is nobody more equipped to come through the loser’s bracket,” NC State head coach Elliott Avent said. “It’s just about attitude right now and how bad they want it.”
Mallory famously came up just slightly short in his quest to reach Everett’s peak but he went down taking his swing. NC State still has some cuts left to take. The journey to the top has to start somewhere. The remainder of the Greenville Regional will be about whether the Pack has the moxie to fight until the end. A mountaintop in Greenville awaits for someone.
