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ACC Baseball News & Notes: The Final Month of the Season has Arrived

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Hard to believe but the final month of the conference and college baseball season is here. It is also the most important time as teams jockey for position in their league postseason tournament. In the Atlantic Coast Conference, 12 teams will make the field that will get a chance to extend their seasons. The tournament is set for May 24-29 at Trust Field in Charlotte, NC. Winning your division is a big advantage in this format as the winners will get the top two seeds to begin play. Let’s see how things are shaping up in the ACC.

In the Atlantic Division, it is a tie for the top between Notre Dame (11-7) and Louisville (11-7). Both teams will be home this weekend. The Irish, riding a five-game winning streak, will host Boston College (3-18) while the Cardinal will be taking on Clemson (6-11). These are two interesting Atlantic Division matchups for this reason. You have two teams that figure to be in the tournament while two are trying to find a way to get there. In South Bend, ND will play a struggling Eagles squad that has lost eight of their last nine games. Some reasons for the bad season? First, they are dead last in pitching with a team ERA of 7.19, 12th in fielding with a .967%, and they have made 48 errors while turning 34 double plays. Second, they are near the bottom in almost every pitching category the league keeps track of. What they lead in is not good as they are first in wild pitches with 48, first in sac bunts allowed with 18 and in sac flies with 24. They have allowed 327 runs of which 283 have been earned. This is a tough league to win in for sure and numbers like these will not help. Boston College will need to win out to make the 12-team field. A tall task to ask of a team that has struggled from the start.

Clemson’s situation is not as bleak as BC’s but some wins down the stretch will improve their chances of making it to Charlotte. The Tigers have a .273 team batting average which is 11th in the league. Max Wagner is tied for 10th in batting with a .366 average. He is third in HRs with 17, seventh in RBI with 51, fourth in total bases with 114, third in on-base at .494, while leading in slugging at .851. He is the one man in the Tigers lineup you don’t want to face with the game on the line. Pitching is middle of the pack with a 4.21 team ERA. Mack Anglin, with a 4-3 record and a 3.24, is the team’s best. Opponents are hitting just .195 against him (10 G, 174 AB, 34 H). Two other members of the staff worth noting are closer Ryan Ammons with six saves good for fourth in the league, and Jackson Lindley tied for third in appearances with 22. He has a 6-0 record with one save. Clemson has played well of late winning seven of ten and are 5-6 on the road this spring. They will have to be on top of their game as they face a Louisville team that is 21-5 at home and 6-4 in their last ten.

Miami (16-5) still has the number one spot in the Coastal Division. The Hurricanes, at 16-5, have a two-game lead in the loss column on Virginia Tech. Miami is currently ranked at #2 by Collegiate Baseball after taking two-of-three last weekend vs Pittsburgh. The series win was their sixth of the season. The Hurricanes, with a 31-9 overall record, are one of two ACC teams to reach the 30-win plateau. The other team is Virginia at 31-10.

The team chasing Miami is Virginia Tech (12-7). The Hokies are the hottest team in the league. Last weekend they came up to Boston and swept the Eagles, including playing a game at Fenway Park last Saturday night. It marks the second time in program history that VT has had a chance to play in an MLB ballpark. The other time was in 1998 when they were playing for the A-10 title at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The Hokies continue to be one of the hottest teams in college baseball. They are ranked in the top-10 in five of the nation’s polls. Jack Hurley is still the league’s best hitter at 421 and is tied for first in doubles with 18, and first in on-base at .500.

The ACC had two players named National Players of the Week by Collegiate Baseball. Tommy White of North Carolina State and Max Wagner of Clemson. These two combined to have quite a week with four multi-home run games, eleven total home runs, 18 RBI and 15 runs scored. White is second in the league in home runs to Georgia Tech’s Kevin Parada. White has 18, Parada leads with 19. Wagner is right behind both with 17. Wagner was also named ACC Player of the Week. He went 6-19 with six home runs and 10 RBI, one double, eight runs scored, three bases on balls and one strikeout. He slugged 1.421 with an on-base percentage of .500. The Tigers went 4-1 for the week with four of those games being against top-10 teams. Wagner went deep vs #10 Georgia on Tuesday night. He did it again the next night vs East Tennessee State. Then, over the weekend vs #9 Florida State, Wagner hit four bombs against the Seminoles in the first two games of that series.

The Pitcher of the Week is Pittsburgh’s RHP Billy Corcoran. In Sunday’s start vs the Hurricanes, Corcoran allowed four baserunners in seven innings in the Panthers’ 9-4 win. He also struck out eight, gave up three hits, one run, and one walk. The win was his fourth straight which includes three over top-5 teams, Louisville, and Virginia. In those three starts, Corcoran’s numbers were 22 innings, with 28 strikeouts, and two walks.

Next week we will be back with more from the ACC.

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