UNC baseball beats Clemson in 14 innings

DURHAM — The game wasn’t supposed to matter.

It was a formality. Clemson had already been eliminated, and top-seeded North Carolina was already guaranteed to play N.C. State on Saturday for a spot in the ACC tournament title game.

As a result, the Tar Heels could have lost Friday with no repercussions, and for eight innings it looked like they would. But then, junior Brian Holberton stepped to the plate with two outs and two on in the ninth, and he launched a ball over the right center-field wall that changed everything.

The three-run shot capped off an explosive five-run inning that tied the game at 7-7. And, suddenly, a game that was insignificant on paper morphed into a 14-inning epic.

With another five-run inning in the 14th, the Tar Heels (50-8) knocked off Clemson 12-7, reaching the 50-win plateau for the fifth time in eight years.

“You just never know what these kids have,” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “There’s no such thing as meaningless games … I hear it all of the time, but it’s hogwash. It’s not true. It’s just not.

“When the game starts, there’s too much competitiveness between these two schools and teams, and tonight proved that.”

He wouldn’t factor into the game by the end of it, but sophomore Benton Moss started for the Tar Heels and allowed five runs, saddling UNC with a 5-2 deficit through 5.1 innings. At that point the Tigers looked firmly in control, and their grip on the game only grew stronger as first baseman Cody Stubbs mishandled a ball and then threw it away in the eighth, allowing two more Tigers to cross the plate.

Meanwhile, the UNC offense had struggled all night to bring runners home, leaving 10 men on base through eight innings. Heading into the ninth down 7-2 in game that had no bearing on the tournament, it would’ve been easy for the Tar Heels to simply accept defeat.

They didn’t.

“The team that we have, we don’t really get deflated or anything like that,” third baseman Colin Moran said. “We know we can have a big inning and have a chance to get back in it just like that.”

And just like that, they did. UNC rallied off of Clemson reliever Matt Campbell, loading the bases to set up a one-out RBI single for Stubbs. Then Michael Russell hit a sacrifice fly off pitcher Scott Firth, and Holberton hit the game-tying homer.

For the next five innings, Firth and seldom-used UNC right-hander Reilly Hovis traded zeros on the scoreboard. With UNC looking to save closer Trent Thornton for Saturday’s game with N.C. State, Hovis carried the load and threw 82 pitches — possibly earning himself future appearances in the playoffs.

“This was Reilly Hovis’ coming-out party tonight,” Fox said. “We played 58 games, and now we might get some things that we didn’t know about for the regionals coming up or maybe tomorrow or Sunday if we’re that fortunate.

“There’s all kinds of things as you go through this game that you can say, ‘Wow.‘”

The final “wow” came in the 14th, as UNC finally broke through and rallied for five runs. Stubbs singled to lead off the inning, advanced to second on a bunt and moved to third on a passed ball. He scored on a fielder’s choice that second baseman Mike Zolk hit right back to the pitcher.

A couple of batters later, Chaz Frank drove in three more runs with a bases-clearing triple, and Landon Lassiter drove in the fifth run with a single up the middle.

After Mason McCullough recorded the final out, the Tar Heels stormed the field excitedly from the dugout. The game wasn’t supposed to matter. But 14 innings later, neither team seemed to care.