Owls shock Tar Heel baseball team

The first one was all it took.

Through six innings, not a single bloop, grounder, liner or outfield drive had made its way past a North Carolina defender. UNC starter Hobbs Johnson was a domineering force on the mound — simply unhittable.

But he was also slipping. His feel for the strike zone had clearly diminished as he pitched deeper into Sunday night, and after barely escaping a precarious bases-loaded jam in the sixth, a leadoff walk to No. 4 seed Florida Atlantic in the seventh signaled his exit.

Two batters later, off the side-winding right-hander Trevor Kelley, No. 8-hole hitter Ricky Santiago finally hit a ball that no UNC fielder could catch.

It sailed over the left-center field wall, sending the jubilant Owls out of the dugout and onto the grass in celebration.

The first FAU hit of the night gave the Owls a 3-2 lead. And though they’d eventually tack on two more, it was the only hit they needed to take down first-seeded North Carolina and force an elimination game Monday.

“Well, the good news is we get to play again tomorrow night,” coach Mike Fox said — although, if the Tar Heels had won, Monday’s game wouldn’t be necessary.

The result bore a strong similarity to last season’s first regional matchup with St. John’s on June 2, 2012 when a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth — also by a No. 8-hole hitter — knocked UNC into the loser’s bracket.

The Red Storm followed up the upset by eliminating UNC two days later, but Fox said he doesn’t expect this year’s Tar Heels to fall into the same trap.

“Everybody knows we haven’t lost two games in a row all year long, so we’ll focus on that,” Fox said. “And I trust my team — got some good leaders in there. I’m sure they’re not very happy.”

It was a game that the Tar Heels seemed positioned to win.

Though the offense left at least one runner on bases in every inning, UNC was leading 2-0, and that seemed more than enough to support a dominant Johnson, who had retired 12 in a row in the middle innings.

But then a ground ball coaxed its way through the legs of Colin Moran at third base with one out in the sixth, and after that seemingly harmless error, Johnson’s night began its downward spiral.

Throwing out of the stretch for the first time in four innings, Johnson lost his handle on the strike zone, walking the next two batters and only narrowly escaping the bases-loaded jam by getting cleanup hitter Tyler Rocklein on a deep flyout.

In the next inning, Johnson walked the leadoff hitter, prompting pitching coach Scott Forbes to visit the mound and call for Kelley.

Given that Johnson was throwing a no-hitter, Fox said there some hesitation in making the move.

“A little bit,” Fox said. “We just thought he lost his release point. And to us,walks are the same as hits. There are people on base, so you can’t really focus on the fact he hadn’t given up a hit.”

Johnson agreed with that assessment after the game.

“I mean, I always want to stay in, but my control was an issue all day,” the left-hander said. “It’s just one of those things where I’ve been in the windup for awhile, and it shouldn’t have happened, but it did.”

In a game where UNC left 15 runners on base, there was little margin for error.

The team had even loaded the bases in the inning prior to the FAU three-run shot, but a rare 1-2-3 double play off the bat of Moran took the juice out of the rally.

Then, after falling behind, the Tar Heels simply couldn’t muster much offense. Of their 12 hits, just one came in the last three innings — a ninth-inning single by Cody Stubbs that was erased after he was caught stealing.

Outfielder Chaz Frank, who went 4-for-5 on the night, said the Tar Heels tried to keep their heads up after falling behind late, but they simply couldn’t respond with a big hit of their own.

“You have to try to keep the team energized and stay positive when something like that happens,” Frank said. “I think we played well defensively all game, and Hobbs gave us a heck of an outing. We couldn’t ask for more.

“Basically, the story was we couldn’t get guys in … And they took advantage of it with a big three-run home run.”

And it was the only hit FAU needed.