North Carolina State’s Brett Williams doubled in a run in the top of the 17th inning to break a 4-4 tie and send the Wolfpack to the College World Series for the first time since 1968.

The extra-inning, rain-delayed affair, which took nearly seven and a half hours to complete, proved to be the longest super regional game in NCAA history.

The Pack rallied in the ninth for the second night in a row. Down 4-1, NC State’s Jake Fincher doubled in two runs to draw the score to 4-3. Tarran Senay, who eventually scored the winning run, drove in Fincher to tie the score at 4.

The Owls left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and the two teams went scoreless for the seven innings before the Wolfpack heroics ended things at about 11:30 p.m.

Rice (44-20) led most of the game after hammering out a season-high three home runs, including two by Christian Stringer, who had just one homer the entire regular season.

The Wolfpack will play the winner of the UNC-South Carolina game in their first game of the College World Series in Omaha.

Check back for more.

NC State rallied for a dramatic 4-3 comeback win over Rice in game one of the Raleigh Super Regional on Saturday at Doak Field at Dail Park.

The Wolfpack (48-14) moved one win closer to Omaha, and pulled to within one victory of tying the program record for wins in a season by jumping ahead 2-0 in the bottom of the first. Rice scored once in the fourth and again in the fifth to even the score, before pulling ahead 3-2 in the top of the ninth. State responded with two runs in the bottom half to walk off with the 4-3 win.

Jake Fincher sent the game-winning single to left with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, his team-leading eighth hit of the NCAA Tournament. Fincher has reached base at least once in 60 of 62 games this year, and provided a 2-for-4 outing with a run and an RBI. Logan Ratledge pushed the tying run to the plate on a safety squeeze with one out.

Brett Williams and Jake Armstrong scored the tying and winning runs, respectively. Williams beat a tag at the plate on the squeeze play, finishing the day 1-for-3 with a double, a run, and a ninth-inning leadoff walk.

Wolfpack starter Carlos Rodon ended up with a no decision after 8 1/3 innings, holding Rice to three earned while giving up a career-high 11 hits. Rodon fanned nine batters to improve to 16-for-17 on striking out at least eight batters in starts this year. Rice’s run in the top of the fourth snapped a streak of 26 2/3 innings Rodon had pitched without allowing an earned run.

Reliever Grant Sasser allowed one hit over 1/3 of an inning. Josh Easley (7-2) retired the only batter he faced, with runners on second and third, to capture the win.

Rice starter Austin Kubitza left with a no decision after two earned on five hits over the first seven innings, striking out eight. Reliever Zech Lemond (7-2) took the loss, giving up two earned on one hit over the final 1 2/3.

For only the third time in program history, the Pack needs one win to advance to Omaha. In 2008, the Wolfpack lost game three at Georgia. In 1968, NC State defeated Florida State for the only College World Series berth in school history.

NC State returns to action on Sunday at 4 p.m. for game two of the Raleigh Super Regional on ESPNU. Radio coverage will be handled by 88.1 WKNC. Fans can also follow along with live stats on GoPack.com, or on Twitter via @NCStateBaseball.

NC State senior Tarran Senay drove in five runs, including three on a home run blast, to lead the Wolfpack by William & Mary 9-2 to win the NCAA sub-regional championship.

The Pack put up three runs in the first, 6th and 8th innings to cruise to the regional-clinching victory.

In three games this weekend, NC State allowed just three runs, the fewest the Pack has ever allowed in 26 NCAA Regional appearances. Sunday’s win was the Wolfpack’s 47th of the season, which ranks as the fourth most in school history. State will need to advance to Omaha to match the program record of 49, set in 1993.

For the second year in a row, Senay had a homer and five RBIs in the title game, finishing 2-for-5 with a run scored. All-Region performer Jake Fincher went 3-for-5 with a run and an RBI to improve to 59-for-61 on reaching base at least once in games this season. Logan Ratledge went 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI for his second three-hit outing against the Tribe to make the All-Region team at second base. Trea Turner, Grant Clyde, and Carlos Rodon joined Senay, Fincher, and Ratledge on the All-Region team.

Wolfpack starter Brad Stone (3-2) secured the win with 5 1/3 shutout innings, holding the Tribe to four hits while striking out three. Ryan Wilkins worked the next two innings, allowing two runs, one earned, on two hits. Grant Sasser claimed his eighth save of the year with a perfect 1 2/3 innings to slam the door.

NC State’s pitching staff did not allow a walk for the second game in a row. Over the weekend, Pack pitchers struck out 25 batters while issuing just two walks.

William & Mary starter Matt Wainman (4-4) took the loss on 5 1/3 innings, allowing six runs, five earned, on 10 hits. Reliever John Sheehan pitched the final 2 2/3, surrendering three earned on four hits.

The Wolfpack took charge early as Turner and Fincher led off the bottom of the first inning with back-to-back singles to center field. After a fielder’s choice by Brett Austin put runners on the corners, Senay crushed his three-run homer over the right field wall to give the Pack an early 3-0 lead. The home run was his eighth of the season and second of the regional.

Both teams went scoreless for the next four and a half innings, before NC State manufactured three more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Bryan Adametz and Matt Bergquist hit back-to-back singles with one out to put runners on the corners, before second baseman Logan Ratledge reached on a perfectly executed safety squeeze down the first base line.

With runners on first and second, Fincher legged out an infield single to third base, scoring Bergquist and a hustling Ratledge after an interference ruling on the Tribe’s pitcher, who blocked the third base line to give the Wolfpack a 6-0 advantage.

The Tribe would cut the deficit to five in the top of the seventh on a pair of back-to-back doubles with one out. In the eighth, three Wolfpack fielding errors extended the inning to allow Ryan Brown to score when Ryan Lindemuth reached on a fielder’s choice.

State stretched the lead to 9-2 in the bottom half, started by Ratledge’s two-out double down the left field line and into the visiting bullpen. An intentional walk put Turner aboard, and a double steal put both runners in scoring position. Fincher reached on a dropped third strike to score Ratledge and push Turner to third, then advanced to second on another wild pitch. Austin walked to load the bases, setting up Senay’s two-RBI single to left center.

NC State returns to action next weekend for the Super Regionals against the winner of the Eugene Regional.

Boxscore

Starting pitcher Carlos Rodon spun a complete-game, two-hit shutout while striking out 10 as the top-seeded NC State baseball team defeated William & Mary, 1-0, Saturday evening at Doak Field at Dail Park.

NC State (46-14) set a single-season wins record under the direction of head coach Elliott Avent with victory No. 46 on Saturday. Now in his 17th season at the helm of the Wolfpack, his previous best season was 45-18 in 2003.

Rodon’s 10th strikeout of the evening tied him with Mike Caldwell for second place on NC State’s all-time strikeouts list with 296. He has struck out at least eight batters in 15 of his 16 starts this season and reached double-digit strikeouts for the third-consecutive start and the seventh time in his last 10 starts. Rodon has also allowed just three hits and struck out 33 batters in his last 23 innings pitched.

After singling and eventually being left stranded on third base in the top of the third inning, shortstop Trea Turner doubled to lead off the sixth inning, before right fielder Jake Fincher chopped an infield single to put runners on the corners with no outs.

After Fincher was caught stealing and the next batter went down on strikes, first baseman Tarran Senay was intentionally walked, before third baseman Grant Clyde delivered the game’s only run with a two-out single up the middle to put the Wolfpack ahead, 1-0.

William & Mary starting pitcher John Farrell (11-3) pitched 7 1/3 innings of six-hit ball, allowing just one earned run while walking three and striking out six.

Turner stole his 25th and 26th bases of the season and now has multiple hits in 23 of the 50 games in which he has played this season. He finished the night 2-for-3.

William & Mary will face Ole Miss on Sunday in an elimination game at 1 p.m. The winner will take on the Wolfpack at 6 p.m.

The Wolfpack improves to 9-1 in Regional competition at Doak Field.

Boxscore

– News release

NC State senior Dave Thomson and junior Sean Weber, the first Wolfpack doubles pair to make the field of 32 in NCAA Doubles Championship since 2008, fell to a team from Mississippi State Thursday night.

Playing at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex/Atkins Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Illinois, Thomson and Weber fell 7-6(5), 6-1 to MSU’s Jordan Angus and Malte Stropp.

Thomson and Web had seven wins over nationally ranked opponents this season and finished the year with a 19-12 record. Angus and Stropp advance after moving to 21-16 on the season.

NC State exploded for four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to break open a tie game with Clemson in the nightcap of the ACC Championship’s opening day Wednesday at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The Wolfpack used the big inning to secure a 6-3 victory over the Tigers.

“They just did a better job hitting with men on base,” said Clemson coach Jack Leggett said after watching his manage just one run in a bases loaded, no out situation in the sixth, one inning before NC State got four runs out of a bases loaded situation just one inning later.

NC State (43-13) is off Thursday, but will be back in action at 11 a.m. Friday against Miami. The Wolfpack is in good shape with a win under their belts and their top pitchers still available. Clemson (39-18) is also off Thursday and will return to action Friday night at 7 p.m. against North Carolina.

Clemson starter Daniel Gossett (L, 9-4) limited NC State to just three hits over the first six innings, but he got himself in trouble with a couple of miscues in the seventh. After left fielder Bryan Adametz opened the inning with a single, Gossett added another base runner when he hit designated hitter Jake Armstrong.

“I just lost my command,” Gossett said. “I started leaving balls up, walking people and I hit a guy.”

After Gossett foiled an attempted sacrifice to get the lead runner at third base, he negated that stellar play when he wild-pitched the runners to second and third. Gossett then walked Wolfpack leadoff batter Trea Turner to load the bases with one out.

That was all the help the Pack needed. Jake Fincher ripped an RBI single between second and third and NC State added a second run on an errant throw from left fielder Tyler Slaton. Catcher Brett Austin drove in two more runs with a double to deep left-centerfield.

“The biggest part of that inning was getting the leadoff guys on,” Fincher said.

The four seventh inning runs made a winner of relief pitcher Josh Easley (W, 5-2), who pitched a strong four innings in relief of Wolfpack starter Brad Stone. The senior entered the game in the sixth with the bases loaded and no outs. He induced catcher Garrett Boulware to bounce into a double play, then struck out shortstop Tyler Krieger to end the threat and limit the Tigers to a single run in the inning.

Easley did allow a solo home run by Boulware in the ninth, but he faced just 12 batters to get the final 12 hours.

“When we got ahead, I thought we had it,” Austin, Easley’s catcher, said. “He had everything – fastball, slider and command of the first pitch.”

“I thought we played really, really good tonight,” State coach Elliott Avent said. “We played well a long time now, I think we won 24 of 28, but through that you do not always bring your A game. We played well but tonight we played really well. I thought Daniel Gossett is obviously one of the best pitchers in the country and I thought he was really good tonight. Brad Stone kept them at bay. We also played tremendous defense. We played pretty solid defense the second half of the season we did not start out that way. We played very good defense tonight.”

Boxscore

ACC-champion NC State’s impressive debut season under first-year head coach Shawn Rychcik came to an end on Sunday as the Wolfpack fell 7-0 to No. 5 host Tennessee in the title game of the NCAA Knoxville Regional.

On a rainy weekend that saw multiple weather delays, the Wolfpack (35-20-1) got an outstanding performance over three days from sophomore pitcher Emily Weiman, who threw the Pack’s first 24 innings in the four-team regional without relief, including a 10 2/3-inning outing in a 1-0 loss to the Volunteers on Saturday that matched the longest of her career.

Weiman (33-18) took both losses against the Volunteers, but also both wins against James Madison, a 2-0 win in the opener on Friday, and a 6-4 win in a elimination game that was started on Saturday evening and was completed on Sunday morning, advancing the Pack to the title game against Tennessee.

In all, Weiman threw 423 pitches, going a total of 28.1 innings, while giving up 27 hits, 10 earned runs and three walks. She struck out 12 batters in the four games.