UNC baseball team defeats Gardner-Webb 6-5

Nothing went according to plan for the North Carolina baseball team Thursday afternoon.

Down 4-3 against Gardner-Webb after the third inning, the Tar Heels were forced to change tactics to dispatch the Runnin’ Bulldogs.

Coach Mike Fox took out starting pitcher Garrett Davis after the redshirt sophomore gave up four runs on four hits.

Pitching changes became a common theme for UNC by the game’s 6-5 end. Four different Tar Heel pitchers ended up seeing time on the mound.

“We would rather not use all of our relievers like we did today,” Fox said. “We play all of these games one at a time.

“If we had our druthers, Garrett would have pitched into the sixth or seventh inning, but it obviously didn’t work out that way.”

Those plans dwindled from the red-hot hitting of Gardner-Webb’s Josh Drewery. Drewery started the scoring off with a double RBI down the left-field line. The redshirt senior then struck again in the third inning with a two-run homer to put his side ahead 4-2.

After Drewery’s home run, Fox brought on freshman Chris Munnelly to replace the struggling Davis.

“It’s tough getting behind a mid-week team coming in here trying to beat you right out of the gate,” Fox said. “We had to climb out of a hole twice.”

The switch paid immediate dividends as the Tar Heels locked down on defense. In three innings of action, Munnelly gave up only one hit before being replaced by Greg Holt in the sixth inning.

But Drewery answered the call again in the seventh inning by driving in an RBI off of Holt to even the score at five.

Fox brought in Michael Morin in the eighth inning to close, and the freshman delivered. Morin gave up only one hit in the final two innings.

“You just want to try and stay away from the big innings,” freshman Brian Goodwin said. “And I feel like our relievers came in and just did a great job bearing down and keeping runners off base.

“When we brought somebody else in they would come in and get outs with people on base.”

After struggling for nine innings to get to even ground, UNC got the run it was looking for from a familiar face.

With the bases loaded and only one out in the bottom of the ninth, senior Ryan Graepel stepped to the plate and put UNC into the lead for the first time, singling between the third baseman and the short stop for the winning run.

“Graepel’s played in the World Series. He has been in that situation before,” Fox said.

“I told him if you get a chance to swing, get it done for us.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.