UNC Baseball wins NCAA Tournament opener over UCLA

The UNC baseball program defeated No. 21 UCLA in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

Behind a strong pitching performance from Austin Love and some timely clutch hitting, the UNC Baseball program defeated No. 21 UCLA 5-4 in the opening round of the Lubbock Regional.

The Bruins got to Love early, as they got a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning. After that, Love found his groove, as he completely silenced UCLA’s offense by retiring 13 straight Bruins hitters. Through his 6.2 innings of work, Love allowed just three earned runs on six hits.

During his outing, Love struck out 9 Bruin hitters. Thats the most strike outs from a Tar Heels pitcher in an NCAA tournament game since 2011.

After Love allowed his first earned run, the Tar Heels offense picked him right back up. In his first game since March 14, Will Stewart drove in a run on a RBI ground in the top of the second to tie up the score. Two innings later, Stewart was back at it, this time hitting an RBI single to center field that brought in two more Tar Heel runs.

Even though Love was on a roll through the middle portion of the game, the Bruins were not going away easily. The Bruins cut the Tar Heels lead to 3-2 in the bottom half of the sixth, as they tried to mount a comeback in the tournament opener.

However, the Tar Heels quickly responded and in a huge way. In the top of the seventh inning, Danny Serretti hit a two-out, two-run homer to extend North Carolina’s lead to 5-2. Although the homer gave the UNC baseball team a three-run cushion, would it be enough to capture the victory?

In the bottom half of the inning, the Bruins tacked on another run against Love. With runners on first and second with two outs, Forbes elected to take his ace out, as he called upon Caden O’Brien to get the final out of the inning. O’Brien quickly worked out of the jam, as he struck out Pat Caulfield to end the threat.

Forbes elected to let O’Brien start the eighth inning, but similar to Love the inning before, the junior left-hander got into his own jam. Nik Pry took over on the mound, and allowed one of O’Brien’s baserunners to score on a wild pitch.

After facing just one hitter, Forbes elected to take out Pry and bring in Shawn Rapp. The freshman walked the first batter he faced, but got the next batter to ground out in front of home plate to maintain the Tar Heels 5-4 lead.

The Tar Heels offense threatened in the top half of the ninth, but were unable to score. Looking to hold onto the lead, Forbes turned to Gage Gillian to record the final three outs. Gillian walked a batter but that was it, as he helped secure the Tar Heels victory while recording his fourth save of the season in the process.

In his first NCAA Tournament appearance as a Tar Heel, Brett Centracchio had a day to remember. The grad transfer had three hits, tying his single-game best, and also scored two runs in the victory. Serretti, Stewart and Angel Zarate also had two hits a piece for the Tar Heels, who had 11 total hits as a team.

With the win, Scott Forbes now has a head coaching victory in the NCAA tournament under his belt. His team will have a quick turnaround, as they will match up with No. 8 ranked Texas Tech in the winner’s bracket on Saturday night starting at 9:00 PM EST.

Continue to follow the Keeping It Heel team for all the latest NCAA Tournament updates regarding the UNC baseball program.