St. John's stuns UNC with walk-off homerun

For the losing team, a walk-off home run can be described in two words — quick and painful.

And for the North Carolina baseball team, those feelings were evident in the postgame press conference in the aftermath of a 5-4 defeat, courtesy of St. John’s Danny Bethea and his walk-off three-run homerun.

Though the game was played at Boshamer Stadium, St. John’s was the home team, giving them the bottom of the ninth inning to come back from a two-run deficit.

As right fielder Shell McCain described the downhearted atmosphere of UNC’s locker room following the end of the game, closer Michael Morin stared at the ground and shook his head over and over.

Morin took over for starting pitcher Kent Emanuel in the ninth inning and could never get in his zone. He gave up a double to Jeremy Baltz before allowing Sean O’Hare to single to first, advancing Baltz to third.

“I wasn’t overwhelmed with the situation or anything like that,” Morin said. “I was calm and I just wasn’t throwing strikes. It had nothing to do with the opponent or anything like that. I just didn’t feel comfortable.”

It appeared Morin was finding his comfort zone when he struck out the next batter, Zach Lauricella. But that was only the calm before the Red Storm came on with a vengeance.

Bethea stepped up to the plate and after seeing one strike, connected with a fastball. Bethea sent the ball over the left field wall and past the outstretched arm of Parks Jordan.

“Baseball is just one of those sports that you can lose like this,” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “That’s the life of a closer. You can be on the mound at the end of the game for a huge celebration or you can give up a homerun like that. That’s part of baseball.”

Though one powerful hit delivered the victory to the Red Storm, Fox attributes the loss to poor play by UNC’s defense. The Tar Heels only recorded one error, but couldn’t execute numerous key plays.

Despite clutch catches by short stop Michael Russell, as a whole, the defense allowed ground balls to roll past and fly balls to drop.

In the third inning, Russell dropped the ball after attempting to field a ground ball and as a result couldn’t make the throw to first in time. In the next play, Lauricella found the hole behind second base. That allowed St. John’s to score and take a 2-1 lead.

“We misplay a fly ball, we sit back on a ground ball, and so I think about all those things throughout the game,” Fox said. “You try not to think about what the score should be, it is what it is.”

The loss to St. John’s marks the first time that UNC has dropped to the losers’ bracket when hosting the regionals. In order to advance out of the regional, the Tar Heels will have to win three straight games beginning tomorrow against East Carolina at 1 p.m.

“We’ll just use everybody we can to try and survive and turn around and go from there,” Fox said. “We can’t think about trying to win three games, we’ve just got to think about winning one.”