Hovis key for UNC in win vs. UNC-W

The sputtering North Carolina baseball team was in need of a bounce-back performance against UNC-Wilmington Tuesday night after losing six straight.

What it didn’t need was a first-inning 2-0 deficit, with the Seahawks threatening to add more, when they loaded the bases in the fourth inning, leading 2-1.

Enter sophomore relief pitcher Reilly Hovis.

The Gastonia, N.C., native trotted in from the bullpen, relieving starter Zac Gallen, and threw two quick strikes to get ahead of UNC-Wilmington right fielder Teddy Cillis.

After two attempts to catch Cillis fishing for a ball out of the strike zone, Hovis finished Cillis off with a two-seam fastball that caught just enough of the outsider corner to win over the home plate umpire.

“It might have been a little bit off, but the umpire gave it to me,” Hovis said. “I’ll take it.”

Hovis’s fourth-inning pitch would be overshadowed by right fielder Tyler Ramirez’s go-ahead two-RBI single and home runs from Adrian Chacon and Skye Bolt, but the strikeout held the Seahawks (12-14) back just long enough for UNC’s bats to come alive in an eventual 9-4 win.

Senior designated hitter Tom Zengel called the pitch a turning point.

“If they had gotten a hit there, who knows what would have happened,” said Zengel, who added to UNC’s lead with a bases-clearing double in the eighth inning.

“He’s been unbelievable this year, coming in and getting guys out. As soon as he was able to get that guy out, it was just a matter of whether he would be able to finish the game or not.”

Hovis was the game’s winning pitcher, throwing 3.1 innings, allowing just one hit and two walks, while striking out two.

He has emerged as the Tar Heels’ (16-12, 5-7 ACC) premier arm out of the bullpen since closer Chris McCue underwent procedures to treat a blood clot in his right shoulder in last week.

Hovis has the potential to step into the closer role, except UNC hasn’t had much use for a closer since McCue went down, with the Tar Heels losing four of their last five games.

“It’s a short learning curve for some of those guys that we’re bringing in,” Fox said. “Our bullpen’s a little thin.”

The sophomore has proven he’s capable of learning on the job in the past. In the 2013 ACC Tournament against Clemson, he worked out of a ninth-inning jam with a man on base and threw five scoreless innings en route to the Tar Heels’ 14th-inning victory. He did it in the NCAA Regional Final, striking out a Florida Atlantic batter with a man on third in the 13th before another UNC walk-off win and credited those games with preparing him for Tuesday night.

“Experience is everything,” Hovis said. “If you’ve been there before you can do it again.”

Hovis’s strikeout didn’t send the Tar Heels to the brink of a trip to Omaha.

But coming off a demoralizing series sweep at the hands of rival Duke — the team’s first such sweep since 1994 — it might as well have.

sports@dailytarheel.com