N.C. State eliminates No. 2 seed Virginia

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Posted 5:26AM on Friday, May 28, 2004

SALEM, VIRGINIA - Jake Muyco's goal was pretty simple put the bat on the ball and give it a chance to make your team a winner. He did more than that Thursday, lining a single inside the first-base line with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, keeping North Carolina State alive in the ACC tournament with a 6-5 victory against Virginia. The second-seeded Cavaliers (42-13) were eliminated. ``He just threw me a fastball and got too much of the plate,'' Muyco, a defensive replacement in the game, said of Virginia's Canon Hickman. ``I drove it. Contributing like that is a wonderful thing to feel.'' The Wolfpack, who trailed 5-4 when they came to bat, did all their scoring with two outs, quickly erasing the agony of a 6-5 loss to Florida State only 12 hours earlier when the Seminoles rallied in the ninth. ``It's like night and day,'' said Eric Taylor, whose fourth hit was a wind-blown, two-out double that drove in Dustin Knight with the tying run. ``Rock bottom last night to top of the mountain.'' The Wolfpack (35-21) will play North Carolina, which beat Maryland 14-0 in the earlier game, in another elimination game Friday morning. The Cavaliers (42-13), meanwhile, are going home to await a certain at-large NCAA tournament berth in the best season in program history. ``Losses like this really hurt,'' first-year Cavaliers coach Brian O'Connor said. ``We hopefully still have a lot of baseball to play.'' Virginia looked good going into the bottom of the inning, especially when reliever Hickman (8-3) got the first two outs quickly. But Taylor's fly ball drifted away from diving centerfielder Tim Henry, answering the Wolfpack's prayers, and Muyco capped a wild finish. ``I knew he had a shot,'' Taylor said of Henry, ``so I was just praying for it to get down. I was talking to it as I rounded first base.'' Coach Elliott Avent was talking to the wind, too. ``I was just begging for the wind to blow, blow, blow,'' he said. Henry thought he had a good chance to make the play. ``There was a good wind out in center. I gave it my best, dove for it and knew if I didn't catch it, he was coming away with a double.'' Henry had given Virginia the lead with two outs in the top of the ninth, grounding a single to right field his third hit of the game to score pinch-runner Mike Mitchell from second. Mitchell was running for Tom Hagan, who drew a leadoff walk and was sacrificed to second. Virginia loaded the bases on a hit batsman and another walk, but reliever Daniel Caldwell (3-1) got Ryan Zimmerman to ground out. ``That was huge,'' Avent said. ``You're talking about two clutch guys going at it, and fortunately for us, Danny won the battle.'' Hickman also allowed the tying run to score in the eighth when he came on with two runners on, hit a batter and walked Tim Holt, a .148 hitter. Hickman escaped further damage with a forceout, a strikeout and a fly ball, and then easily handled the first two hitters in the ninth. That the Wolfpack came back, especially after a late, disappointing night followed by a back-and-forth game, gratified an exhausted Avent. ``To battle that hard and have a couple of tough things happen and battle through that and come up with a couple of clutch hits in the ninth, I'm just real impressed,'' he said. Virginia went ahead 4-3 in the seventh on four straight bunts. Hagan bunted and reached on a throwing error by catcher Caleb Mangum. After Matt Street bunted into a forceout, Kyle Werman sacrificed and Henry bunted down the third base line for a hit. Steery fielded the ball and his throw to first got away from David Hicks, allowing Street to score. The Cavaliers had tied it at 3-all in the sixth on a walk to Mark Reynolds, a balk, an error and Reynolds' double steal with Zimmerman. The Wolfpack had gone ahead 3-2 in the third when Ryan Johnson drew a leadoff walk and scored on singles by Hicks and Mike Jensen. Both teams scored twice in the second.