UNC Baseball falls to Clemson, awaits NCAA Tourney fate

The UNC Baseball program’s run at the ACC Tournament in Durham ended in the semifinal round against the No. 3 seed Clemson Tigers.

It wasn’t pretty at Durham Bulls Athletic Park on Saturday afternoon, with the weather or on the field, for the UNC baseball program.

The Tar Heels went into the day hoping to continue their win streak at the ACC Tournament and advance to the ACC Championship.

Standing in their way would be the No. 3 seed in the ACC, Clemson. The Tigers have won an astounding fifteen straight games, including a perfect record in the month of May. Clemson swept the Tar Heels last weekend to end the regular season, and Carolina would enter the semifinal round hoping to avenge the sweep.

Connor Bovair got the start on the mound for the Diamond Heels, and unfortunately for him and the Heels, Clemson jumped on top quickly, scoring five runs in the first inning and forcing Scott Forbes to go to his bullpen with Ben Peterson with two outs in the inning.

Hunter Stokely and the offense tried to get something going in the second inning with an RBI double. The Tar Heels would strand two runners in scoring position and only score one run in the inning.

The Tigers would continue their offensive attack. In the second inning, a bases-clearing, two-RBI triple extended the Clemson lead to 7-1, and a solo home run in the third inning made the score 8-1 and dug the Diamond Heels into a deeper hole to climb out of.

Solo home runs by Tomas Frick and Alberto Osuna in the fifth and sixth innings were able to get the Tar Heel deficit back to within five runs at 8-3, but once again, the Tigers answered. In their half of the sixth inning, Clemson hit another two-RBI triple to extend the lead once again, this time 10-3.

Frick hit another solo home run in the ninth inning, which would be the last run of the game for the Tar Heels and make the final score 10-4, ending the Diamond Heels’ run at the ACC Tournament. Now, the Tar Heels sit and wait for NCAA Selection Monday.

The latest D1Baseball Field of 64 projections had the UNC baseball program traveling to the Nashville regional, joining No. 6 National Seed Vanderbilt. We can expect these projections to change over the next 24-48 hours, depending on what happens around the country in other conference tournaments.

As more information becomes available about where the Tar Heels could spend the first weekend of June, we will have it at keepingitheel.com.

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