“We haven’t had a game like this in a long time. We just weren’t very good and they were better.”
Those were the words of Charlotte 49er head baseball coach Loren Hibbs following Wednesday’s 5-0 shutout loss at the hands of the North Carolina Tar Heels. Charlotte behind the 8-ball early, and didn’t threaten the Tar Heel lead until late in the eighth inning.
Charlotte (29-10) entered the game ranked seventh in Division I with 9.4 runs per game and had a +4.1 scoring margin, good for ninth in the country.
The Tar Heels (27-17) broke open the scoring in the top half of the first when Ryan Wierzbicki singled to left field to bring in lead off man Mike Cavasinni. The single was the 52nd hit of the season for Wierzbicki, which lands him second on the squad only behind left fielder Ben Bunting.
“Right now everybody’s mad, everybody’s upset and we got people, myself included that are doing things we don’t normally do,” Hibbs said. “We need to regroup and we need to be ready for Temple this weekend.”
Wierzbicki factored in on UNC’s next run as well when he scored on a Ryan Graepel sacrifice single through the left side to make the score 2-0 in the fourth.
The Tar Heels extended their lead to three in the sixth inning when Seth Baldwin ripped a 2-2 John Hamilton pitch off the left-center warning track for an RBI triple, bringing across Graepel from first to put Charlotte in its biggest hole of the night.
Charlotte finally got a runner in scoring position in the bottom half of the seventh when Tar Heel shortstop Graepel bobbled a Corey Shaylor grounder, allowing Shaylor to reach first. Shaylor advanced to second on a wild pitch, but the Niners failed to capitalize when Zane Williams popped up to shallow left field to end the inning.
The Niners threatened again in the eighth when Justin Wilson and Shane Brown reached second and third respectively, but again, Charlotte failed to capitalize. In seemingly ideal position to get on the scoreboard, junior first baseman Ryan Rivers strung out a 10-pitch at-bat, but eventually struck out swinging to end the inning.
The Tar Heels added two more runs in the ninth to cap off the scoring at 5-0 and send Charlotte to its first home loss since an 8-2 defeat at the hands of Austin Peay on March 13. The 17-game winning streak for Charlotte tied the 07-08 squad for the longest in program history. This season’s 17-game winning streak was the longest not spanning two seasons.
Justin Wilson led the way at the plate for Charlotte, going 2-for-3 and a walk, but Charlotte scattered seven hits across the board and never really threatened North Carolina’s lead.
“They’re very athletic, they play good defense and they pitch,” Hibbs said. “It was just one of those deals where they were better than we were. I’m not going to sugar coat it. We like our guys, I thought the effort was there. They were better than we were tonight.”
Chris Munnelly (2-1) picked up the win for the Tar Heels. Munnelly scattered four hits and struck out five Charlotte batters across six stellar innings in the winning effort. The 49ers’ high-scoring offense was shut out for just the second time this season and was held below 10 runs for the fourth straight game.
Tim Lysaught (4-3) took the loss for Charlotte, striking out five in just three innings of work and allowing just one run. For the night, Charlotte used seven pitchers compared to just two for the Tar Heels and allowed 11 hits compared to seven for the Tar Heels.
With the win, the Tar Heels moved to 30-6-1 against Charlotte and haven’t lost to the Niners in Charlotte since the 1992 campaign.
Charlotte hosts Temple on Friday at 6 p.m. to resume A-10 play.
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