UNC baseball earns a measure of revenge on the St. John's Red Storm

For Chaz Frank, watching St. John’s mob the Boshamer Stadium field last June was a lot like watching his dog die.

It was unexpected. Painful.

With a win in the elimination game of last year’s regional, St. John’s trampled on the North Carolina baseball team’s dream of a sixth College World Series in seven years, shocking the college baseball world by knocking out the regional host.

On Wednesday, in the first meeting of the two teams since that June 3 game, there were no such surprises.

The struggling Red Storm (1-7) barely factored into the decision, swallowed up by a powerful offensive display in an 18-5 win by the No. 1 Tar Heels (7-0).

By the second inning, the win was essentially already in tow. The Tar Heels sent 13 batters to the plate, chewed through three St. John’s pitchers and plated nine runs.

“It was satisfying,” Frank said, chuckling. “It’s always good to have a big inning like that, especially against St. John’s … Of course, we wanted to come out here and play well against the team that put us out.”

Compared to the high-stakes atmosphere of last year’s regional games, Wednesday’s game featured two freshman starting pitchers and a revolving door of young relievers trying to get their feet wet at the collegiate level.

After giving up a single with his first pitch, UNC starter Trent Thornton settled down to hold the Red Storm to two runs in four innings in his first career start, giving way to a relatively solid bullpen effort.

The Red Storm’s pitching staff, led by freshman starter Alex Katz, wasn’t quite so fortunate.

“I thought (Katz) was one of the better arms that we faced so far this year — just didn’t have a lot of command,” coach Mike Fox said. “They brought a lot of young guys out of the bullpen like we did, and when you bring some young guys in, you get some walks, and then it kind of got ugly.”

UNC feasted on St. John’s seven pitchers, who didn’t do themselves any favors with 11 combined walks. Third baseman Colin Moran alone drew four walks in four consecutive at bats.

The Tar Heels took advantage of those free passes — in addition to two wild pitches, two hit batters, two balks and five Red Storm errors — to push across nine runs in the second inning along with seven runs in the sixth.

More importantly, they gained at least an ounce of redemption against the foe that eliminated them last year.

“Certainly in the locker room, you could feel it, just guys wanting to get back,” said freshman Skye Bolt, who wasn’t even part of last year’s team.

“We didn’t wanna just beat them. We wanted to come out and lay it on him — and that’s what we did.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.