DURHAM — The No. 1 seeded North Carolina baseball team dropped the ACC Championship opening game against No. 12 seed Pittsburgh, 5-4, in a well-fought game that eliminated the Tar Heels from contention in the conference tournament.
What happened?
The No. 5 Tar Heels had already played a series against Pittsburgh earlier this year and outscored the Panthers 32-5 in a three-game series, but Wednesday night's game was a different story. It looked like North Carolina might run away with it early and continue dominating the Panthers, quickly tacking on two runs in the top half of the first inning.
North Carolina put up another run in the third inning, but Pittsburgh responded with a sequence of hits that tacked on two more to tie it in the third, forcing head coach Mike Fox to make a pitching change and bring in Josh Hiatt.
Hiatt kept Pittsburgh scoreless through four innings with some pitching heroics. He was able to dig the team out of multiple bases-loaded situations where giving up a run seemed inevitable.
However, Hiatt was fatigued by the seventh inning, and Pittsburgh’s hot bats prevailed as he left the mound. They scored two runs on a double and a groundout right after Hiatt was substituted out, and North Carolina could never recover.
Pitt played stout defense in the outfield and their pitching caused trouble for the Tar Heels batters all night after the first inning. That combo ended up being too much to overcome, and the Panthers sent North Carolina home early, in a 5-4 upset, to the lowest seed in the tournament.
Who stood out?
Josh Hiatt displayed noteworthy pitching for the Tar Heels once again. He was called to the mound during the third inning, after Pitt drove home two runs and tied the game up. Two other men were on base with one out. Hiatt came in and struck out the first, then forced a ground out to second, putting an end to what could have been a crucial inning for the Panthers.
