UNC Baseball: Tar Heels struggle through the week

The Diamond Heels suffered their first losses this week. Check out the game recaps below.

This week was a tough one for the Diamond Heels. Carolina came into the week 7-0 and looking like it had all the capabilities of being a top-ten team.

But following a win on Tuesday against Winthrop, plenty of things went wrong for them.

Winthrop

As previously stated, the Heels opened up the week with an 11-0 thrashing against Winthrop. The Heels just seemed better than Winthrop in every facet of the game, and the score indicated such. At the plate, Logan Warmoth was the man of the day for the Diamond Heels.

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Warmoth was 2-for-4, with one walk, and four RBI’s. Warmoth added to his already scorching hot start this season in this game.

Several Heels also got in on the action at the plate. Five other players had an RBI, and eight players came away with at least one hit. While Warmoth had the most RBI’s, Cody Roberts was the leading hit man for the Heels, going 3-for-3.

On the bump, four Heels got in some work, all going at least one full inning. Tyler Baum got the start, and the win, going 5.2 innings, and giving up only two hits all day. Austin Bergner, Taylor Sugg, and Bo Weiss worked in relief, giving up two more hits total.

St. Johns

After the win against Winthrop, the Heels were 8-and-0, and looked to be rolling. St. Johns came into the game undefeated, and ranked 22nd in the nation.

The Heels were up early on Red Storm, but a late homer off of UNC’s Rodney Hutchison evened the score at four a piece. The Red Storm homered in the eighth, to go ahead 5-4, and they never looked back.

Against St. Johns, Carolina’s Warmoth had a great day, with two hits and two RBI’s. Also for the Heels, Josh Ladowski had a couple of hits in-game one. St. Johns shortstop Jesse Berardi had a good day for the Red Storm.

Berardi had two RBI’s and two runs scored himself.

Cole Aker was the starter for the Heels, but got the no decision, while Austin Bergner went two innings for the loss. Jeff Belge was the starter for St. Johns, and only went two innings before getting pulled. Joe LaSorsa had the win for the Red Storm, with three innings, and four strikeouts.

Long Beach State

Game one

The Long Beach State series was a difficult one for the Heels. In game one, the Heels looked much better early in the game. They got off to a 2-to-0 start in the game, but could not muster up another run after the second inning. T

he Dirtbags of LBSU scored five unanswered runs, to take a commanding 5-2 win in game one of the series.

The Diamond Heels only got five runs total in the game, all by five different players. This was one of the worst offensive games for the Heels. They looked strong, but then Long Beach starter Darren McCaughan settled down. While McCaughan was strong, reliever Josh Advocate was the pitcher getting the win.

UNC stud pitcher JB Bukauskas went seven innings, striking out nine, and giving up two earned runs on the day. Meanwhile, Josh Hiatt suffered his first loss of the season. Hiatt gave up one earned, and two total runs, in an inning-and-a-thirds work.

Game two

Game two was much more lethargic of a game from the Diamond Heels. Reigning ACC pitcher of the week Lucas Dalatri went six innings, and gave up three runs. The strike out wiz could only muster up three strikeouts for the day. For LBSU, they went five pitchers deep on the day. Starter John Sheaks went 5.1 innings, giving up one run, and getting the win.

The Heels were bad at the plate again. They got five hits for the second straight time, three of which game from Zack Gahagan.

Gahagan has been good at the plate all year, but he could not get much help from his teammates. The Tar Heels also left plenty of chances out there. The Heels left ten guys on base.

LBSU was much better than the Heels, getting ten hits as a team, all of which was spread out evenly. They struggled to get the runs, but they had no issues getting hits on the day. LBSU was led at the plate by Ramsey Romano. Romano was 2-for-3, with an RBI for the Dirtbags. The Dirtbags had eight different guys join their hit parade.

Game three

Finally the bats finally woke up for the Heels in game three. Six guys got a hit, and Ike Freeman, and Tyler Lynn had two a piece. Tyler Lynn was the man of the day for the Tar Heels. In the fifth inning, a Tyler Lynn cleared the bases with a three-run triple. Lynn went 2-for-4 on the day for the Tar Heels.

On the bump, the Heels went short with their starter. Jason Morgan went 4.1 innings, while he gave up three runs, two earned. Rodney Hutchison got the win for the Tar Heels, who came on for an inning to bridge the gap between pitchers.

Hutchison improved to 2-and-0 on the season.

The Heels could use this kind of performance game in and game out. Baseball is a crazy game, and you can never count on a good performance everyday, but the Heels are clearly capable of giving this performance every day.

If they can give this performance, they can reach Omaha.