UNC baseball defeats Elon 11-3 in rain-shortened game

No. 3 North Carolina’s offense did more than enough to roll over the Elon baseball team.

That wasn’t a whole lot — the Phoenix (18-12) did most of the Tar Heels’ work for them.

UNC (23-6) blew out Elon 11-3 in a seven-inning, rain-shortened game on Wednesday, making Elon pay for shoddy pitching and defense.

R.C. Orlan got the win in relief for the Tar Heels, throwing 1.2 scoreless innings after starter Cody Penny was lifted in the third.

The Phoenix made things easy for North Carolina. Their pitchers combined for 12 walks and three hit batters, and the team committed two errors in the field.

Leadoff hitter Chaz Frank drew three of those walks and said they catalyzed the Tar Heels.

“Everybody on the team did a good job seeing the ball tonight and we didn’t swing at too many bad pitches,” Frank said. “We only had six hits, so the walks and hit-by-pitches really helped us get those 11 runs, and it feels good.”

But UNC coach Mike Fox said the walks came mainly from Elon’s wildness, not the Tar Heels’ plate discipline.

“They were very wild,” Fox said. “The way you let a pitcher off the hook is if he does throw a strike and then you swing at what would be ball two or ball three and now it’s strike two. It changes the whole at-bat and they’re going, ‘Thank you.’ We did that a little bit tonight.”

UNC scored its first 10 runs on only five hits and finished the game with 11 runs on six hits.

The last time Elon walked 10 or more hitters was in its matchup with the Tar Heels last season, when the Phoenix walked 13.

After relying on big innings against Wake Forest last weekend, UNC spread out its scoring against Elon. The Tar Heels scored in each of the first four innings, including four-run innings in the third and fourth, to take a 10-2 lead halfway through the game.

Elon’s sloppiness led to most of North Carolina’s runs. In both the third and fourth inning, UNC scored all its runs after having two outs and nobody on base.

In the third, an error and a walk set up Shell McCain’s two-run double. Then, after a hit batter, Tommy Coyle smoked a two-run triple down the right-field line.

“It was a slider and the pitcher hung it with two strikes, something I was able to wrap down the line,” Coyle said. “Sometimes it just takes one swing or one hit, even a bunt for a hit, to change your luck around.”

Coyle had struggled against Wake Forest but bounced back against Elon, going 2-4 with three RBI.

But the Phoenix had their worst inning in the fourth, again after getting two quick outs. Elon gave up five straight free passes to UNC hitters — four walks and a hit-by-pitch.

Ryan Pennell walked two straight and hit a batter before he was pulled for Grant McCoury. McCoury threw four straight balls — three in the dirt — to walk in a run.

McCoury’s first pitch to the next batter, Chaz Frank, was a wild pitch that scored another run. Frank walked, then Coyle chopped a ground ball through first baseman Casey Jones’ legs for a two-run error.

It was a debacle of an inning that blew the game wide open.

At first, North Carolina struggled to capitalize on the chances Elon gave it. UNC loaded the bases in the first two innings — off of three straight walks to open the game — but scored only once in each frame.

But Elon just allowed UNC too many opportunities, and the Tar Heels broke through with their eight runs in the next two innings.

“We let their starter off the hook,” Fox said. “We let them off the hook the first two innings. We had the bases loaded three times in the first four innings, and that’s almost unheard of. You’d better score four, five runs in that situation.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.