Tar Heels sweep George Washington in season opener

North Carolina baseball coach Mike Fox had never lost a season opener in 11 years with the Tar Heels.

But with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and again in the 10th, it certainly seemed that the streak would come to an end Friday against George Washington.

Instead, UNC drew a walk to tie and stole home on a wild pitch in the 10th to win 6-5. The Tar Heels would go on to sweep the series.

“I do think Friday we were fortunate to win,” Fox said. “They did outplay us Friday, but we came up big when we needed to.”

The wins over the weekend continued the No. 11 Tar Heels’ streak of sweeping season opening series, with their last series lost coming in 2002.

Small ball was the name of the game for UNC to start Sunday’s showdown. The two runs scored in the first inning came off a sacrifice fly and a ground out. In the third inning, freshman Brian Goodwin tallied his first collegiate hit and RBI when his stand-up triple scored two runs.

“That’s a really big weight off my shoulders,” Goodwin said. “But I feel like after I get one, I can just keep it going.”

But the Colonials fought to ensure that the final game in the sweep wouldn’t be a blowout. Chris Holland and Chris Luick recorded back-to-back RBI doubles and drew the game to 4-3.

UNC reverted back to earlier tactics in the middle innings, scoring one run in both the sixth and seventh to effectively put the game out of reach and win 6-3. Mike Cavasinni, Levi Michael and Jesse Wierzbicki finished the weekend with three RBIs each.

Colin Bates turned in a seven-inning performance that included three earned runs, five strikeouts and no walks. Fox said that his starting pitchers over the weekend met the standards he and his staff set in the preseason.

“All three of them gave us what we expect,” Fox said of Bates, Matt Harvey and Patrick Johnson. “They threw a lot of strikes, got us into the fifth, sixth, seventh inning and kept their pitch count down.”

Wierzbicki’s two-run shot in the third inning Friday was Boshamer Stadium’s first of the season and tied the game at 2-2. In the ninth, an error by the GWU third baseman and pitcher Ryan LaPointe issuing two straight walks sent the game to extra frames.

Down a run, UNC once again faced a two-out situation. The Tar Heels tied the game with an RBI single and nabbed the win after Bobby Lucas Jr.’s wild pitch allowed Dillon Hazlett to score from third for a 6-5 victory.

The Heels were able to tame GWU on Saturday in part behind the stellar pitching of Johnson. He allowed only one run in seven innings of work while fanning seven Colonials en route to getting the 4-2 win.

Before the book was closed on Johnson, the Heels were able to string together a four-run seventh inning. With the bases juiced and two outs facing Cavasinni, UNC’s redshirt senior swung at the first pitch from freshman relief pitcher Brian Derner and drove it up the middle for a two-RBI single.

Derner then hit second baseman Tommy Coyle with a pitch that would lead to two more runs. Coyle was hit by three pitches over the first two games of the series, with two of the HBPs leading to a score for UNC.

“The first two I think I just couldn’t get out of the way, they just kind of came up quick on me,” Coyle said. “But that third one, I think I kind of stuck my elbow out. That was a close part of the game, so you got to take one.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.