At the start of No. 6 North Carolina’s doubleheader against Georgia Tech on Saturday, coach Mike Fox couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
After an 11-4 drop to the Yellow Jackets (24-17, 9-12 ACC) on Friday night, the Tar Heels (29-12, 13-8) began their doubleheader with eight runs on eight hits in the bottom of the first inning alone — the highest-scoring inning UNC has seen in league play all season.
“We almost didn’t know how to react,” Fox said. “It’s eight to nothing, and we’re like, ‘We went a whole weekend series and didn’t score eight. We’ve gone a whole week and not scored eight runs.’
“It sort of snowballed them a little bit and that helped us to relax a little, but when you know you have 17 innings to go, you’ve obviously got to keep playing.”
And try as they did, the Tar Heels couldn’t keep that momentum going. Although UNC took game two with a 12-6 win, a 4-2 drop in the series finale later that day gave Georgia Tech the series victory.
The 2-1 weekend loss was just the second ACC series drop the Tar Heels have faced this season after being swept by Miami earlier this month.
On the mound, UNC shifted freshman Benton Moss to game two’s starting pitcher, filling in sophomore Hobbs Johnson in the starting role for game three.
Johnson, a reliever that spent just 3.2 innings on the mound for North Carolina his freshman season, worked for 6.1 innings in his first starting spot on a weekend. In doing so, he also made a strong case for becoming a permanent fixture in that role.
“I do long relief usually out of the bullpen, so it wasn’t much different from that,” Johnson said. “I just tried to treat it as if I was coming out of the bullpen — same mindset and everything — just attacking hitters.”
Johnson attacked the Yellow Jackets enough to give up just three singles before the Yellow Jackets’ Jake Davies took advantage of his tiring arm in the seventh inning.
