UNC falls to N.C. State in first game of College World Series

OMAHA, Neb. — North Carolina ace Kent Emanuel watched himself on film, tweaked a mechanical flaw, and he said he felt better Sunday than he has in any of his last few starts.

He needed to be better, too. He was matched up head-to-head with the NCAA’s leading strikeout pitcher, Carlos Rodon, facing rival N.C. State in UNC’s first game of the College World Series. It was a much-ballyhooed pitcher’s duel, but in a 8-1 N.C. State win, it quickly turned one-sided.

Despite Emanuel’s tweak and despite his improved confidence, just five pitches into the game, Wolfpack shortstop Trea Turner dropped his bat and trotted toward first.

It was a leadoff walk, which led to a first-inning Wolfpack run. And it only got worse from there.

Emanuel lasted just 2.2 innings, giving up five runs on six hits as Rodon went the distance for N.C. State, striking out eight and allowing just five hits and one run.

“Facing Carlos Rodon, as good as he is, getting behind is one of the worst things you can do,” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “We’ve been able to hang in there with him and match him on the mound on our side and just kind of outlast him.

“He was too good for us today.”

Rodon’s afternoon began much like Emanuel’s, as he followed up the UNC ace’s rocky first with a four-pitch walk to leadoff hitter Chaz Frank.

Frank turned to the Tar Heel dugout and yelled, “Let’s go!”, before walking to first as the potential tying run. But little did he know, he would be the last UNC baserunner for quite some time.

Rodon quickly snatched control of the game from that point, holding UNC hitless until Brian Holberton singled with two outs in the fifth. And he continued to throw up zeros as UNC shuffled through eight pitchers, tying single-game College World Series record.

Unlike Rodon, Emanuel could never regain control. He struggled to put away Wolfpack hitters and stomp out rallies. All five runs he allowed came with two outs, starting with a two-strike, two-out RBI single by Tarran Senay in the first and continuing with four two-out runs in the game-sealing third.

Fox said he thought Emanuel’s problems stemmed from a lack of feel for his off-speed pitches. Emanuel’s theory was even simpler than that.

“Just not making the pitches I need to,” said Emanuel, who has now allowed 19 earned runs in 15 innings of postseason play. “I think just the big spots like Senay in that first inning, two strikes … I just needed it just a couple more inches to get the swing and miss.

“It’s just been stuff like that, just not executing the big spots.”

Whatever the reason for his struggles, Emanuel’s loss puts UNC in a hole both within the game and within the tournament.

The Tar Heels will face elimination Tuesday against the loser of tonight’s UCLA-LSU game, and they’ll have no margin for error throughout the rest of the double-elimination portion of the tournament.

Having played a couple of elimination games in the past two weeks, the Tar Heels are no strangers to that kind of pressure.

“Losing the first game doesn’t mean anything,” Frank said. “Obviously, it’s important to win the first one, and you want to win the first one, and it helps you a lot. But we’ll come back and fight just as hard. And we’re going to come back and win the next game.”