Big South schools must love coming to Chapel Hill.
The Liberty Flames were the second team from the Big South to knock off the North Carolina baseball team in a midweek game this season after Gardner-Webb did it back in March. After Liberty’s 5-3 win Wednesday night, UNC is now 3-2 against the conference this year and that includes a 10-inning, one-run win against Coastal Carolina.
“Liberty’s a really good team,” catcher Jacob Stallings said. “They just simply came out with more energy than us tonight … I thought we had an excuse to be tired against Gardner-Webb, but I didn’t think that was the case tonight. We just didn’t have the energy — for whatever reason, we just weren’t as locked in as we were last night and this weekend.”
With runners on the corners in the bottom of the eighth inning, Liberty (31-10) looked to its bullpen to preserve its 3-2 lead, but it didn’t call for a relief pitcher. Instead the Flames brought out their usual Friday night starter, John Niggli, who was 7-0 on the year with a 1.86 ERA.
“That says it’s an important game — they want to win it,” coach Mike Fox said.
“But we knew that, we know these two teams that are coming in here next week (will be the same), but that comes with being North Carolina, being in the ACC and us having a good year.”
Niggli ended the eighth inning after facing just one batter as Cody Stubbs bounced into a double play.
The Flames tacked on two more runs in the top of the ninth to stretch the lead out to three runs. While the ninth inning was wasn’t quite as easy for Niggli, he walked away with the save anyway.
Niggli loaded up the bases by hitting a pair of batters and walking one, but Tom Zengel helped him out by hitting into the second double play in as many innings. Zengel knocked in a run on the play, but the Tar Heels were left with just one out in the game.
