Friday, May 14
Pittsburgh, Pa.
6 PM
Pitt
vs
NC State
Photo by: Katie Meyers/Pitt Athletics
No. 16 Pitt Closes Home ACC Play with NC State
5/13/2021 5:35:00 PM | Baseball
PITTSBURGH – No. 16 Pitt baseball (22-13, 16-11 ACC) plays its final home ACC weekend series against NC State (23-14, 14-13) Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
HOW TO FOLLOW
STARTING PITCHERS
SENIOR DAY
BATTLING FOR A COASTAL TITLE
A SPOT IN CHARLOTTE IS CLINCHED
TOP-25 RANKINGS
TOP RPI MATCHUP
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT-NC STATE
ALL-TIME SERIES
UP NEXT
#H2P | Twitter | Instagram
HOW TO FOLLOW
- Each game is available to be streamed on WatchESPN/ACCNX.
- Fans can also follow along with live stats updates through Twitter. Follow @Pitt_BASE for the latest news and updates about the team.
STARTING PITCHERS
- FRIDAY: RHP Mitch Myers (4-4, 2.92 ERA, 1.18 WHIP) | RHP Reid Johnston (5-2, 4.53 ERA, 1.06 WHIP)
- SATURDAY G1: RHP Matt Gilbertson (6-3, 3.51 ERA, 1.19 WHIP) | RHP Sam Highfill (4-2, 4.50 ERA, 1.16 WHIP)
- SATURDAY G2: RHP Billy Corcoran (0-1, 2.70 ERA, 1.30 WHIP) | TBA
SENIOR DAY
- Saturday's game serves as Senior Day.
- 10 players are to be honored in a pre-game ceremony: five graduate transfers (Matt Tarabek, Corey Sawyer, Ramon Padilla, Stephen Hansen and Jordan McCrum), two four-year members (Nico Samarkos and Chris Cappas) and three second-year seniors (Chris Gomez, Nico Popa and David Yanni).
- The graduate transfers didn't get to have a senior day with their previous school due to the COVID-19 ending last season prematurely, and Samarkos and Cappas have already received their degrees and are set to begin jobs after the season commences.
BATTLING FOR A COASTAL TITLE
- With two weekends left in the regular season, the Panthers sit in second place in the Coastal Division of the ACC at 16-11 (.593).
- The race to win the division is tight as Georgia Tech (18-12, .600) is in first and Virginia Tech (16-14, .533) and Miami (15-14, .517) can jump to first with just one weekend of play.
- The standings and seeding for the ACC Tournament are determined solely by winning percentage.
- Head-to-head play will be the first tiebreaker, but that will only happen if other ACC teams have games cancelled as Pitt's series at Louisville April 23-25 was never played.
- Having played every Coastal opponent already, Pitt won series against Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia while dropping them to Virginia Tech and Duke.
- The program has only won one conference regular season championship, the Big East title in 1994 at 15-5.
A SPOT IN CHARLOTTE IS CLINCHED
- After the first win in the series victory over Boston College, Pitt clinched a spot in the upcoming ACC Tournament.
- This year's tournament will be held in Charlotte at Truist Field for the first time May 25-30, and the traditional format remains the same with four pools of three teams and the winners of each advancing to the single-elimination semifinals.
- With the top-12 teams regardless of division earning slots into the ACC Tournament, Pitt's currently Pitt slotted as the No. 4 seed and would have Florida State (No. 5) and Clemson (No. 9).
- The Panthers have only appeared in one ACC Tournament since joining the league for the 2014 season.
- In 2018, the team earned the last seed (No. 12) and knocked off No. 8 Georgia Tech 2-1 and top-seeded North Carolina 5-4 to reach the semifinals of the tourney.
TOP-25 RANKINGS
- Currently Pitt is ranked as high as 16th by Baseball America, 16th by DIBaseball.com, 18th by USA Today Coaches, 19th by Collegiate Baseball and 22nd by the NCBWA.
- Pitt recorded its highest-ever ranking in program history on March 22, garnering the No. 14 slot in the Baseball America Poll, and reached that mark again on April 26 in the same poll.
- The Panthers were ranked in the top-20 all five major polls on March date: DIBaseball.com (No. 15), Collegiate Baseball (No. 18), USA TODAY Sports Coaches' Poll (No. 18) and National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association (No. 20).
- Two weeks ago, the Panthers were ranked in the top-20 by all five polls again.
- Pitt debuted in the top-25 nationally on March 15 for the first time since May 13, 2013 with selections in the polls by DIBaseball.com (No. 18) and Baseball America (No. 19). The rankings are the first since joining the ACC for the 2014 season.
- The last team to be ranked at all, the 2013 Panthers' squad was ranked as high as 16th by Collegiate Baseball on May 13, 2013.
TOP RPI MATCHUP
- The series features a pair of top-40 RPI ranked teams with Pitt (28th) and NC State (37th).
- Pitt has the 21st-toughest strength of schedule so far this season and own 14 wins against quadrant one teams (one against No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 48 Duke, two against No. 18 Indiana State, No. 41 Georgia Tech and No. 43 Virginia and a sweep of No. 20 Miami and No. 40 Florida State).
- All but three games have come against quadrant one and two teams.
- The ACC also ranks third in the conference RPI rankings as all 14 teams are in the top-90 with 12 in the top-60.
- The NCAA released its first RPI rankings of the season Feb. 25, and the Panthers were slotted second (.6487) behind just Arkansas.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT-NC STATE
- After dropping the first three ACC series with just one win, the Wolfpack have since won 19 of its last 24 games.
- NC State features one of the ACC's best offense, leading the league in runs per game (7.30), slugging percentage (.486), RBIs per game (6.43) and triples per game (.30).
- Junior outfielder Jonny Butler has been one of the conference's best hitters, ranking third in batting average (.371) and seventh in slugging percentage (.637) in addition to nine homers and 33 RBIs.
- Sophomore infielder/outfielder Tyler McDonough is sixth in slugging percentage (.669), eighth in batting average (.344), ninth in runs (38) and tied for sixth in homers (12).
ALL-TIME SERIES
- NC State leads the all-time series 9-1 and have swept all three ACC series.
UP NEXT
- Pitt welcomes Akron next Tuesday at 3 p.m. for the final nonconference game of the regular season. The game is slated for an ACC Network broadcast.
#H2P | Twitter | Instagram
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