UNC outlasts Cornell's excitement in regional opener

According to UNC coach Mike Fox, The North Carolina baseball team was fortunate.

The Tar Heels may have beaten Cornell 7-4 in their opening game of the NCAA tournament, but they lacked one key ingredient to post season success – being excited.

“They were excited to be here and I’m not sure our team matched that,” Fox said. “I think you have to be really, really careful about the regional and being home and being complacent and just not locking in and bringing it.”

“But I’m not taking anything away from Cornell. We did just enough to win and we were fortunate to win this game.”

Despite carrying a 5-0 lead into the 71 minute rain delay, Fox told his team that he enjoyed watching the Big Red more than his own team.

“I think Cornell showed you what it’s like playing in the NCAA tournament after (35) years,” Fox said. The excitement in being here, I thought they played terrific.”

For UNC, participating in the NCAA tournament is almost routine while the Big Red’s appearance is the first since 1977.

Cornell’s energy was apparent as the Big Red put up 13 hits, two more than UNC. However, Cornell found difficulty in converting those hits to runs due mostly in part to UNC’s strong pitching staff.

The Tar Heels used six pitchers to down the Big Red, beginning with left-handed pitcher Hobbs Johnson. The sophomore’s start was the first of his career in postseason play. Earlier this season Johnson carried a perfect game into the eighth inning against Virginia Tech before giving up three hits and two runs.

“Hobbs gave us what we wanted out of him,” Fox said.

After giving up two runs on six hits, Hobbs left the rubber, and was replaced by R.C. Orlan after the rain delay. Orlan stopped the impending Big Red hitting free-for-all and recorded four strike outs and only one run in the 1.2 innings he pitched.

“Your job as a reliever is just to get a couple of outs, especially get out of big jams like that without giving up too many runs,” Orlan said. “So my goal was just to stop the bleeding with the one run I gave up. I made a good pitch and got the strike to end it.”

Orlan was followed by a host of pitching staff used to thwart any threat of Cornell’s offense.

“Obviously they have a very good pitching staff,” Cornell coach Bill Walkenbach said. “They do a good job matching up the way they do, lefties and righties. It’s a huge advantage for them.”

Closer Michael Morin sealed the win for UNC, striking out two batters and only allowing one hit. The save was his 18th this season, tying him with Andrew Carigan and Thad Chrisman for the most saves in a single season at UNC.

“That’s not something that I was thinking about on the mound or anything like that,” Morin said. “It was one of my goals at the beginning of the year and so it always feels good to accomplish one of those goals.”

Though the Tar Heels move on to the winners bracket, they know that they’ll have to find the missing ingredient if they want to continue the trek to Omaha.

“It’s postseason atmosphere. If you’re not excited to play then you don’t have a pulse,” Morin said. “It starts right now and if we can’t get up for the game tomorrow, then there’s something wrong with us.”