ACC Baseball News & Notes: Wake is the Top Team in the Land

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The college baseball season is now two weeks old. The top team in the land is a member of the ACC. The Wake Forest Demon Deacons (6-1) have maintained their status as the top-ranked ranked baseball team. They have plenty of company from other members of the league. Six teams will enter week three of the season as ranked teams according to D1 Baseball. Clemson (6-1) is at #10, Duke (7-0) is at #12, Virginia (7-0) is at #13, North Carolina State (4-2) is at #14, and despite being in last place in the Coastal Division, North Carolina (5-2) is at #17.

Three teams, Duke, Florida State, and Virginia are unbeaten as the week rolls along combining to win twenty games to date. Last weekend, the Cavaliers won the first-ever Jacksonville Classic knocking off #18 Iowa in the process. Florida State swept a three-game series from Western Carolina. Duke did the same vs Northwestern. So far, the ACC is 75-20 in non-conference games. They have three wins over Top 25 teams and the league has a 10-3 (.769) record vs Power 5 schools. The winning percentage leads all Power 5 leagues. The league is off to a great start and it’s not even March yet.

Last weekend saw two programs reach very lofty milestones in their school’s history. The North Carolina Tar Heels and the Clemson Tigers both won their 3,000th game in program history. The Tar Heels reached that mark on Friday night with a 2-1 victory over East Carolina. The Tigers did it a day later, defeating Kennesaw State 8-6. This weekend, North Carolina will host Princeton for a three-game series. Clemson will take on #19 South Carolina in a three-game in-state series. The other big in-state series takes place in the state of Florida as #4 Florida State heads to Miami.

Clemson’s Cam Cannarella has a 16-game hitting streak on the line this week. He has already posted three hit games in Clemson’s first seven games. With their 7-0 record, the Duke Blue Devils are off to their best start since 2008. In their sweep of Northwestern, the bats came alive in a big way on Sunday by scoring 20 runs. In Florida State’s 6-0 start, they averaged 13.5 hits per game and 11.5 runs. Both of these numbers lead the league. Georgia Tech Drew Burress is on quite a tear at the plate. Heading into their mid-week game vs Georgia State, Buress extended his hitting streak to seven games hitting .367, with 9 HRs and with 20 RBI. In that mid-week game, Buress went off, hitting four HRs and driving in six. The Yellow Jackets got very good starting pitching from Carson Ballard who went five shutout innings to get his first win of the season.

The Louisville Cardinals got healthy at the expense of the St.Bonaventure Bonnies of the A-10. In the three-game series, the Cardinals batted .392 with 69 hits, 58 runs, 17 doubles, and eight sacrifice bunts. All of these numbers ranked in the top 10 in the country. Virginia’s 7-0 start is for the third straight year. However, what is a little strange is they have trailed in six of these games. After spending the week in Hawaii, the NC State Wolfpack will play their next 10 straight at home.

The ACC Player of the Week is Vance Honeycutt of North Carolina. He homered in three straight games including a go-ahead grand slam vs Elon. He has extended his on-base streak to 42 games dating back to last season. He went 6-for-15 at the plate with eight RBI to go along with the home runs. Honeycutt is now the second player in UNC history to join the 40 HR and 50 stolen base club.

The ACC Pitcher of the Week is Florida State’s Jamie Arnold. He went a career-high six innings with a career-high 11 strikeouts in an 8-4 win over Western Carolina. He allowed one hit while walking two. In 11 innings of work, he has an ERA of 0.00. He is one of five power-five pitchers that have thrown 11 innings with a zero ERA. Three of these pitchers are from the ACC.

Next week we’ll be back with more from ACC Baseball.