In a sport without quarters or periods, the North Carolina and Miami baseball teams played a game with two completely different halves Thursday afternoon at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
After five innings, UNC lead 5-0 but in the last four Miami scored seven unanswered runs to take the opening game of the tournament for both teams.
“It felt like the game was two different halves,” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “It was unfortunate we couldn’t pad our lead a little bit after being up five to nothing.”
The Tar Heels sent all nine batters to the plate in the first inning – scoring three runs on three hits. ACC rookie of the year Colin Moran opened up the scoring with a sharply hit ball to left center that scored shortstop Levi Michael. Moran ended up at second base on the play.
Four batters later, centerfielder Ben Bunting singled to right, pushing Moran across the plate. The Hurricane starter Bryan Radziewski hurt his own cause by issuing a bases loaded walk to the Tar Heel starter Greg Holt. The walk scored senior Jesse Wierzbicki and put North Carolina in front 3-0 after the first inning.
Miami left fielder Rony Rodriguez made a costly error in the bottom of the fifth inning when he fumbled a weakly hit single by Jacob Stallings. The error allowed Wierzbicki his second run of the game. Holt singled to bring home Stallings and the Tar Heels led 5-0 after five innings.
Holt lasted five and two-thirds innings and the Tar Heels led 5-1 when he left the mound. Holt allowed only three earned runs in his first start in over a year. The performance solidified Holt’s role as the fourth starter, should the situation for one arise later in the postseason.
The Hurricanes came storming back in the top of the sixth to get within a run of North Carolina before jumping into the lead in the seventh. When the charge was done, the Hurricanes had tallied 14 hits.
“Miami certainly swung the bat a lot better than we did.” Fox said. “We couldn’t hold the lead – didn’t get it done out of the bullpen – and they beat us.”
