UNC baseball team falls to Winthrop 3-1

It was the bottom of the first inning Wednesday afternoon at Boshamer Stadium, and the North Carolina baseball team had managed to load the bases without incurring any outs.

With the heart of the order coming up, that was situation a team could only dream of to start a game.

But, instead, this sought-after dream quickly turned into a nightmare as No. 18 UNC (15-9) was only able to attain its lone run of the afternoon in a 3-1 loss to the Winthrop Eagles (12-14) .

Coach Mike Fox said the team’s inability to take full-advantage of the situation served as a crippling blow to the Tar Heels.

“I thought we lost the game in the first inning, really,” Fox said.

“We got exactly the scenario we want — got the bases loaded, three walks, we’ve got our middle of our order up. And I think if we score more than one run — if we hit a ball in the gap or get a base hit, and we’re up 2 or 3-0 — I think probably the whole game perhaps changes.”

The game did change for the Eagles.

Brad Kaczka opened the top of the second inning for Winthrop with a sharp grounder down the third-base line that bounced over the glove of a diving Alex Raburn and into left field for a double.

And after UNC starting pitcher Luis Paula struck out one batter and walked the next, the No. 9 hitter, Michael Patrick , dug his foot into the batter’s box.

Paula got ahead 1-2, but his next pitch would go sailing over the left-field wall and into the netting in front of the Boshamer scoreboard to drive in all three of Winthrop’s runs.

“That guy was just looking for a ball up, and it was a mistake pitch that he took advantage of,” said UNC reliever Spencer Trayner . “I was in the bullpen when he hit that, and I thought it was an easy fly ball to our left fielder. And the ball just kept carrying.

“It just happens sometimes.”

Paula’s night would come to a conclusion an inning later, and Trayner and the rest of the Tar Heels’ bullpen would shutout the Eagles for the remainder of the game.

With the bullpen doing its job, UNC needed to wake up its bats — a task that proved to be arduous against Winthrop’s pitching tandem of Zach Sightler and Josh Strong .

The Tar Heels would combine for nine hits on the evening off of the duo, but, just as it was in the first inning, the team failed to execute with runners on base — stranding 10 on the night .

The Tar Heels were only able to get the leadoff man on base twice during the game, and Fox said that was what hindered the team from taking advantage of the ducks on the pond.

“When you’re down by two runs, you need that leadoff guy on or otherwise you’re trying to score with an out or two and then sometimes you need a two-out hit,” Fox said.

“We didn’t have anybody really step up there and really hit a ball hard and hit a ball in the gap.”

Catcher Korey Dunbar , who went 2-for-4, said the team must take advantage of those situations and must change its approach in order to do so.

“We’ve just got to start playing inning by inning, winning every inning,” Dunbar said. “Right now we’re just not doing that. And I don’t know what we’ve got to do, but we’ve just got to step it up — no excuses at all.”

sports@dailytarheel.com