The Valiant Effort of Cooper Consiglio for NC State

RALEIGH — Sometimes, even the best days for a pitcher still end in disappointment. That's what happened for lefty starter Cooper Consiglio and NC State on Sunday, as Duke snatched the final game of the series, 3-2, spoiling a gem from the junior at Doak Field. Still, the effort deserves praise.

On a weekend when the Wolfpack needed some reassurance about its starting pitching after news of Jacob Dudan's season-ending injury sent shockwaves through the community, it got just that from both Consiglio and righty Heath Andrews, who got the win for the Pack on Saturday. Head coach Elliott Avent revealed an even more impressive aspect of Consiglio's effort after the game, however.

'Coop was unbelievable'

NC State baseball right-handed pitcher Cooper Consiglio rests in the dugout during a 13-0 win over Sacred Heart on Sunday, March 1, 2026. | Courtesy of NC State Athletics

Sporting a mustache that would fit more on the 1972 Oakland Athletics than the 2026 Wolfpack, Consiglio took the mound looking to earn his team a sixth-straight victory. Things didn't start the way he hoped, as the Blue Devils had him in trouble early and scored after an error on a pickoff attempt in the first inning. In the second, he gave up a solo home run. That was it.

The crafty lefty buckled down for six innings of work after his pitch count ballooned in the first inning. He struck out seven Duke batters, using a nice mix of pitches to keep the visitors off balance all the way through his start. From the stands and the press box, Consiglio's performance was already impressive. However, there was more behind the vintage outing from the old-school southpaw.

Cooper keeps Duke off the scoreboard in the third.

M3 | Wolfpack 0, Duke 2 pic.twitter.com/ikZZrOaNmd
— NC State Baseball (@NCStateBaseball) April 12, 2026

"Coop' was unbelievable," Avent said. "I had Carlos Rodón... Everybody knows how tough-minded he was and mentally tough and physically tough. He used to pitch with a blister a lot. Coop in the second inning had a blister, and from the fourth inning on, he had two. He basically had no skin on either finger."

Even with the blisters bothering him, something many pitchers can't handle, Consiglio battled through the adversity to give his team a chance to win. The Wolfpack tied things up in the bottom of the sixth, but after 90 pitches with the ailing fingers, he finished after six, avoiding the loss. His ERA dipped to 2.75 after the effort, making him one of the top pitchers in the ACC.

Elliott Avent. — NC State head coach Elliott Avent before a game. | Courtesy of NC State Athletics

Consiglio displayed a level of grit that NC State embodied over the last week as a team. It's all giving the skipper more hope about a season that looked to be turning for the worse at the end of March. Not many losses make the veteran coach smile, but there was an air of pride in Avent's voice when talking about the gutsy outing from his lefty arm on Sunday. Now, the Pack must build on it.

"The valiant effort of Cooper Consiglio was unbelievable," he said. "That's what our guys are doing right now, Heath yesterday, Coop today, digging deep, giving us everything they've got and we just weren't able to put anything together... We made a good rally and just came up a little short."