Tar Heels cruise past Tigers

No. 17 North Carolina didn’t quite match the dominant pitching or hitting Wednesday that it delivered in a 25-1 spanking of Princeton the day before.

With a bit of St. Patrick’s Day luck, though, the Tar Heels (14-4) still had plenty to put away the Tigers for a 12-5 win.

A series of Princeton errors in the first three innings led to five unearned runs that gave the Tar Heels an early 6-1 lead.

“We got a break,” coach Mike Fox said. “We didn’t play our best, but that helped give us a little bit of a cushion.”

With the bases loaded in the first, Tigers second baseman Alex Flink let a ball that could have been a double play bounce off his glove, letting a pair of runs score.

Two more errors sandwiched around a walk in the third inning set up another three runs for the Tar Heels. After that, the UNC bats managed to keep up the production and keep the lead for the second win in two days against Princeton (1-8).

Fox warned the team against letting the large margin of the first game give them a false sense of security.

“Coach was drilling into our heads, ‘We won big yesterday, but today’s a new day. We’ve got to come out and play,’” said Jesse Wierzbicki, who had an RBI triple.

Dillon Hazlett led the Tar Heels with four RBIs as UNC scored six more runs the old-fashioned way to put away the Tigers.

UNC freshman Parker Thomas went for 3 1/3 innings in his first career start, giving up four hits and four earned runs. The right-hander showed some potential with his fastball and allowed just one run in the second after a dangerous one-out, bases-loaded situation.

“I thought he did real well,” freshman pitcher Zach Bernard said. “He’s one of the hardest workers on our team.”

Thomas, who finished with three walks and three strikeouts, made an early exit soon after giving up a two-run homer to the Tigers’ John Mishu that made the score 6-3.

Fox said he could tell Thomas was “really nervous” but that it’s all part of being a rookie.

“We all remember our first college game, at-bat, whatever, playing here, and it’s understandable,” Fox said. “He’s got a good arm. He wants to be good. He’s not quite there yet, but most freshman pitchers aren’t.”

The game also saw a pair of Tar Heels end hit streaks of double-digit games, despite productive outings.

After hitting three doubles and drawing four walks on the previous night, freshman Brian Goodwin got on base in his first two at-bats. But both of those came off Princeton errors, and his 12-game hit streak came to end.

Ryan Graepel walked in his first four at-bats and popped up in his fifth, ending his streak at 11 games.

Mike Cavasinni made a brief return from a nagging right shoulder to pinch hit in the eighth inning but struck out. The injury still on his throwing arm still kept him from fielding, but Fox said he was optimistic about his chances for returning to play this weekend.

“He’s our spark plug, and we definitely need him,” Wierzbicki said.



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.