“We probably popped up 75 percent of the balls that we hit and then made a couple of errors at key times,” head coach Donna Papa said. “And you can’t win like that.”
While it was a tough loss for UNC, there were some positive takeaways.
A bright spot for North Carolina on Wednesday was its ability to bounce back after falling behind.
Trailing by four runs after the first three innings, UNC had its back against the wall. And to make matters worse, the Tar Heels were held hitless through the first 3 2/3 innings.
But that would all change. A walk to senior Kendra Lynch in the bottom of the fourth followed by a Leah Murray bunt for the first Tar Heel hit brought up first-year star Brittany Pickett — who promptly unloaded for a three-run home run to breathe some life into the Tar Heels.
“I thought that was a really great moment during the game ...” Pickett said. “Coming back to only being down one. We just cheered and kept battling back.”
But that small deficit would not stand for long. The Eagles pushed across runs in each of the last three innings, causing the Tar Heels to turn to Lynch and Pickett for mound duties on days when they were both scheduled to rest.
“I think we can learn a lot from these games,” Lynch said. “I think we had a really slow start but we didn’t quit at the end ... unfortunately we didn’t come out on top of this one.”
