This NC State baseball team doesn’t have the same star power of the last one to make it to the College World Series.
Jonny Butler is making his case to be mentioned in the same class as Wolfpack pros Trea Turner and Carlos Rodon from the 2013 CWS team.
Butler homered and drove in five runs to lead NC State to a 10-4 win over Stanford in the first game of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. on Saturday afternoon.
Butler hit a two-run home run off of Stanford ace Brendan Beck in the first inning and then drove in a pair of runs in the fourth and started a four-run rally in the ninth.
The All-ACC left fielder also homered early in the Super Regional clinching win over Arkansas last Sunday. He led the ACC in hitting (.385 average) this season and leads the Wolfpack in RBI (53) and ranks second on the team in home runs (14).
NC State (36-18) advances to the winners’ bracket of the double-elimination format to face the winner of Vanderbilt-Arizona on Monday at 7 p.m.
NC State peppered Beck, the Pac-12 pitcher of the year, early and led 6-0 before the Cardinal (38-16) got home run from Tim Tawa in the fourth and then scratched out three more in the seventh.
Beck (9-2) was dominant at times, with 10 strikeouts in 5.2 innings, but gave up two home runs (Devonte Brown had the other in the fourth) for only his second loss of the season.
But reliever Evan Justice held up the strong start by Reid Johnston (9-3), who bounced back from a disastrous outing in Game 1 in the Super Regional. Johnston was on the wrong end of the 21-2 loss to Arkansas last week but he gave up three earned runs in six innings for his team-best ninth win of the season.
Justice worked three scoreless innings to seal the important win for the pitching-stretched Wolfpack.
NC State improved to 6-1 in the NCAA tournament and 23-6 in all games away from home this season. In back-to-back games, the Wolfpack has beaten the SEC pitcher of the year and the Pac-12 pitcher of the year.
Turner, the shortstop, and Rodon, the ace, were a pair of first-round picks who led the Wolfpack to a school-record 50 wins in the 2013 season. NC State won the opener in the 2013 CWS, too, but lost its next two games.
Now, Butler will try to do what Turner and Rodon couldn’t.
