It was a weekend of contrast for the No. 12 North Carolina baseball team.
“It’s just what baseball will do to you,” coach Mike Fox said. “It’ll make you feel really good at times, and it’ll make you feel really bad at times.”
Friday, the Tar Heels were feeling really good.
Hot-hitting freshman Wood Myers continued his excellence at the plate with an 11th inning walk-off single that capped a 3-2 win against a Georgia Tech team that had taken the series from UNC for four straight years.
Saturday the Tar Heels were feeling really bad.
The team struggled to capitalize with runners in scoring position during a doubleheader and lost both games and the series after a grueling day that featured seven hours and 36 minutes of baseball. Make it five years.
“We just hate losing,” said junior pitcher Benton Moss, who threw seven innings and gave up just three earned runs of the day’s first game. “So I think that’s pretty much all you need to know. The guys are pretty down on themselves — not down — but just ... pretty ticked off.”
After playing 22 innings in one day and not getting a win, that’s probably understandable.
“Just an unbelievably long and tough and frustrating day,” Fox said after the final game.
UNC had many shots at winning the first game Saturday to clinch its third straight ACC series. But with the exception of Myers, the team failed to hit with runners on base, leaving 14 stranded.
“We had a lot of chances to win that first game and win the series and didn’t capitalize,” said third baseman Landon Lassiter.
In addition to struggling with runners on base, the Tar Heels continued to make mistakes on defense, totaling five errors on Saturday and extending scoring chances for the Yellow Jackets.
What made that even worse for UNC, was the fact that Georgia Tech was making it look so easy.
“Boy, their two middle infielders were really, really good,” Fox said. “Really good.”
The Yellow Jackets turned six double plays throughout the series, with four of them coming in the first game Saturday.
All of that led to the final game where Georgia Tech’s offense came through in full force. It scored nine runs on 14 hits while UNC managed just a single run and eight hits.
“I don’t think we pitched to our capabilities,” Moss said. “And ... as a team we didn’t play to what we are capable of.”
Now the only thing the Tar Heels can do is move on.
“A loss is a loss, a win is a win,” Moss said. “You have to take it for what it’s worth and learn from the miscues that happened today.
“The only real mistake is if you don’t get better from it, learn from it.”
sports@dailytarheel.com
