UNC closes out the regular season with fantastic pitching

Hobbs Johnson nearly put the perfect ending on the No. 7 North Carolina baseball team’s regular season.

For seven innings and one out in the eighth, the left handed sophomore was, by definition, unhittable. The first 22 hitters of the game for Virginia Tech stepped to the plate only to be turned away without so much as making it to first base.

“I really thought I was going to see my first perfect game,” head coach Mike Fox said, “or at least my first no-hitter. He was just sensational. It was (Jake) Atwell that got the hit, and he’s their best hitter. We threw him a first pitch slider not thinking he’d really swing at it. He hit it off the end of the bat, it’s just one of those things.”

Atwell, the Hokies’ right fielder, broke up the perfect game with one out in the top of the eighth. He made contact with the first pitch he saw and second baseman Tommy Coyle got a glove on it but it was too deep in the gap between first and second.

After getting the second out, Johnson gave up a hard hit ball to Ronnie Shaban that got past Chas Frank in centerfield and allowed Atwell to score and end Johnson’s shutout bid. Brendon Hayden singled to bring Shaban home but that would be all the damage Johnson allowed.

Johnson said after the 6-2 win that it was just one of those days when all of his pitches were working for him. His fastball, which sits in the mid- to high 80s, had the Hokies behind for most of the day. But Johnson, like any pitcher will say, wasn’t thinking about the no-no.

“Honestly, I never even thought about it,” Johnson said. “Because I had this little routine I was doing and I just kept doing it. I didn’t realize it until everybody started standing up and then I looked back at the scoreboard and there it was.”

Catcher Jacob Stallings, in his final home game, had the best view of Johnson’s performance from behind the plate and praised his use of all four of his pitches.

“With two out in the seventh you’re like, ‘OK he could actually do this,’” Stallings said. “And then he got that guy out and we’re all just sitting there like no way this is about to happen. Atwell, he hit a good pitch. Hobbs made a good pitch on a slider and he just went out and got it and it was just out of Tommy’s reach. But he did everything good today.”

Offensively, Stallings led the charge. He scored the first run of the game in the second inning after Cody Stubbs singled him home from second. Leading off the inning, Stallings gave UNC its first hit of the game with a single to right field.

In the next frame, Stallings struck again. This time he nearly cleared the wall in left center field but ended up with an RBI double as Colin Moran scored from first on the play.

Stallings lead off the seventh inning with his third hit of the game, a single to center. Tommy Coyle padded the UNC lead with a two-run homerun to put UNC up 6-0. Stallings finished the day with a team-high three hits in five at bats. He also scored two runs.

“Yeah that was pretty cool,” Stallings said. “I wanted to play well because it was Senior Day and whatnot. But it was definitely very cool and there was a great crowd today. It was a nice thing they did cheering for me before my last at bat.”