Red-hot Virginia Tech travels to Raleigh this weekend to face NC State.
The Hokies (29-5, 8-1 ACC), currently ranked 11th by ESPN, 12th by D1Softball and 13th by the NFCA Coaches, are riding a 10-game winning streak that includes ACC sweeps of No. 16 Stanford and Louisville.
The Wolfpack (21-16, 4-8) was picked 13th by the coaches in the preseason ACC poll. It won two out of three games against Notre Dame and Boston College but was swept in road series at Georgia Tech and Florida State. However, it’s 12-3 at home this season, which includes the two victories over the Fighting Irish.
Friday’s contest will be shown on the ACC Network while the other two games will appear on ACC Network Extra.
Friday, April 4: 6 p.m. ET, ACCN
Saturday, April 5: 5 p.m. ET, ACCNX
Sunday, April 6: 1 p.m. ET, ACCNX
Last season, NC State shocked the then-No. 13 Hokies on Friday night in Raleigh 5-4 before Tech run-ruled the Pack 14-1 and 12-0 in the next two games.
NC State is one of only five ACC squads with a team batting average under .300 (.294). It typically wins with pitching — eighteen of its 21 wins this season have come when it held its opponent to three or fewer runs.
Junior Michele Tarpey leads the Pack in hitting (.400) and on-base percentage (.489) but was replaced during the final FSU game and didn’t play in Wednesday’s contest at UNC Greensboro. The Ensley sisters, Taylor and Tori, are both hitting over .300 and can usually be found near the top of the lineup.
In the circle, NC State relies on four right-handers, including junior Rylee Wyman, who registered the complete game win against the Hokies last season, where she surrendered seven hits and four runs in the Friday contest. However, Tech teed off on her in Sunday’s game, scoring eight earned runs in just 2 ⅓ innings, including home runs by Cori McMillan and Bre Peck.
Here is a comparison of the two pitching staffs:
Defensively, the two teams are polar opposites. The Hokies are third nationally in fielding percentage (.985) while the Wolfpack are 14th in the ACC (.952).
Lindsay Leftwich is in her second season as NC State’s head coach. The Wolfpack went 30-23 last year (6-18 ACC) and failed to qualify for the ACC Tournament for the second straight year. Leftwich has publicly stated that the team’s goal this season is to make the ACC Tournament and she has a shadow box with dirt from the Boston College field in the locker room, along with an ACC Championship patch as a reminder of that goal.
Meanwhile, Pete D’Amour is in his seventh season at Virginia Tech and has taken the Hokies to the NCAA Tournament every year it’s been held. He has a winning percentage of .765 (259-79-1).
“If you are not ready to play this weekend, NC State can beat you,” D’Amour told Tech Sideline after the Liberty game. “If you look back, which we don’t do a lot, those games that we just won are really good games. But if you lose, those games don’t mean anything anymore. [The team] knows that. It just takes one time of not being ready and you lose a ballgame — so you can’t do that.”
Here is the tale of the tape:
