One quick glance at the scoreboard tells the whole story.
Eight, yes, eight consecutive zeros make up the North Carolina baseball team’s line score in Tuesday night’s loss to UNC-Greensboro.
The Tar Heels put up four runs in the first inning and never scratched the run column again for the rest of the game as they lost to the Spartans 8-4.
UNC-G benefitted from a strong relief performance from Tyler Hollstegge (4-4, 3.72 ERA), a key figure in the Spartans weekend rotation. Hollstegge finished off the last 5.1 innings of the game while allowing just one hit.
“That guy was pitching well,” Brian Holberton said. “He was coming right at us with fastballs. We just weren’t taking a good approach, things weren’t going our way and we couldn’t get the hits we wanted.”
Hollstegge’s fastball was sitting around 90-93 mph even into the 8th and 9th innings, and he also utilized a slider coming in at 80 mph. But the Tar Heels weren’t expecting him to dominate the lineup.
Both coach Mike Fox and catcher Jacob Stallings pointed to his opponents’ batting average of .316 as proof that teams can hit him, just not the Tar Heels on Tuesday night.
“When you get a little confidence and realize that you’re rolling through a couple of our guys and that confidence gets up there,” Fox said about Hollstegge.
“You’re like, ‘Man I can beat these guys, I’m throwing my fastball by some of them and my breaking ball is good tonight.’ You could tell he was gaining confidence as he went along.”
For Stallings though, who was visibly frustrated after game, the focus was on UNC’s lack of production at the plate, not the Spartan’s effectiveness from the bump.
