The season is ending for one sport while another sports season has just begun. It is time for fall sports to start winding down and some of the winter sports to start kicking it up a notch.
We can start with football and the recent news we have learned, such as NC State earning a bowl bid to the Belk Bowl. They will face a tough team in Louisville, who was fighting for a spot in a BCS game for a couple of weeks. Louisville will be up to the challenge, even though their offense seems to be stagnant at times; not being able to put up the points that it needs to win the game. Their defense will have to show up to stop NC State because their offense has been taking off recently and if they can continue, while putting a stop with their defense like they have in recent weeks, Louisville might be in a whole quickly. This should be a great matchup for both teams that could be on the rise to better things next season and could be a great win for each program. For those of you who can’t go to the game but want to watch, it will be aired on ESPN on Dec 27, 2011 at 8:00pm.
Now to move on to basketball, with both men’s and women’s team in action this past week. The men’s team had a tough week, with facing a young Indiana team in the ACC/Big Ten challenge. It was a hard fought game that went back and forth with State leading mid way through the second half. However, Indiana was able to put on a run when it was tied at 4:28 mark and surge ahead to pull out the victory 86-75. Then they had to go across the US to play Stanford this past weekend. NC State seemed like they had forgotten the last game and played well as a team. Then C.J. Leslie went down and the game started to unravel for the Wolfpack, even though they had a lead of 12 points in the second half. In the end, shots just didn’t seem to fall and the team did not execute down the stretch which lead them to a loss, 76-72.
For the women’s team, they went 1-2 in the past week, with losses to at Creighton and at Northwestern and then a gutty 2 point win over rival South Carolina with the help of Holston who scored 20 points and 9 rebounds. The women’s team has done well with a 5-2 overall record to start but their journey has only just begun with some tough teams coming up ahead.
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Other Notes:
– Amerson won the 2011 Jack Tatum Award to the top defensive back.
– NC State Baseball has signed 15 players for the coming year.