Tar Heels take game one from Boston College

The North Carolina baseball team exploded for one of their largest offensive performances of the season in Friday night’s series opening dismantling of Boston College.

The Tar Heels put up 15 runs, the most against a conference foe all season, on 16 hits while the Eagles managed to cross the plate just once.

The floodgates opened in the second inning when UNC put a snowman on the scoreboard adding on to the one run they posted in the first to give them a nine run lead.

“Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come,” starting pitcher Kent Emanuel said about the eight-run second inning. “Honestly, I think finishing our exams today had something to do with it. We had some good energy going today. So it’s always nice to go out there and get a big inning to start the game.”

Emanuel picked up the win for the Tar Heels, his sixth of the year but his first in his last seven starts, but he wasn’t necessarily overpowering the Eagle lineup. And he agreed.

“My slider was pretty good today, but honestly the stats might be a little misleading – I thought today was one of my worst outings,” Emanuel said. “But if you stay in the strike zone you can get outs and I was able to do that.”

Emanuel went six scoreless innings and gave up five hits while striking out seven batters and walking just two.

Brian Holberton led off the monstrous second inning with a single and Adam Griffin and Parks Jordan loaded up the bases for Chaz Frank after reaching on a fielder’s choice and an infield single respectively.

Frank nailed a triple down the first base line to clear the bases and notch the first three of his five RBI on the night. Cody Stubbs bookended the 8 run effort with a three-run homerun to right center field four batters later.

Stubbs also ended the night with five RBI after he singled home Jacob Stallings and Colin Moran in the bottom of the fifth. For Moran, Friday was only his second game back from suffering a broken bone in his hand in late March. In his two games back he’s 4-for-8 with three RBI and a homerun (that came in Wednesday’s 2-0 win against Winthrop).

“I feel pretty comfortable up there,” Moran said. “It didn’t take me as long as I would think to get my timing back. But the coaches helped a ton with that and just the practice I’ve had with the week off from exams helped a ton.”

For coach Mike Fox, he’s rarely surprised by his All-American –
recovering from injury or not.

“Nothing really impresses me with him because I’ve seen that kid do some crazy things,” Fox said. “Just in the batters box he has the ability to hit. He’s got that good flat swing, stays inside, he’s able to get the barrel on the ball, he’s just got terrific hand-eye coordination….It does impress me but its doesn’t surprise me – I guess that’s how I should say it.”