By Adam Lucas
1. Huge win for North Carolina, recovering from an early 3-0 deficit and taking a 7-5 win over East Carolina to move into the regional final Sunday at 5 p.m.
2. Thank goodness Caden Glauber isn’t still in high school. The freshman righthander, who reclassed to be part of this year’s Tar Heel team, entered the game in the fourth and was excellent. He threw 4.1 innings, allowing just three hits and striking out eight of the 17 batters he faced. And then Walker McDuffie was excellent in closing out the ninth to record his sixth save.
3. Amazingly, Carolina is now 24-0 when Glauber pitches in a game. After 67 pitches, he’s likely done for the weekend, but will play an important role if the Tar Heels move on.
4. Colin Hynek’s game-tying three-run homer in the fourth might have been the biggest swing of the season so far. He’d fallen behind 0-1 after missing a changeup, and Scott Forbes took a very timely offensive timeout to relax him in the box. It paid off immediately when Hynek crushed the ball 415 feet to dead center.
5. And although Hynek’s shot was the big blow, against a team like East Carolina, it was important to keep adding runs. That’s exactly what Carolina did, plating one in the fifth on an Erik Paulsen sacrifice fly and three more in the sixth thanks to an RBI double from Jake Schaffner and a two-run double from Gavin Gallaher.
6. Gallaher, by the way, now has over 200 hits in his Carolina career. He’s been an important piece of the success over the last three years offensively, and he was also part of yet another double play Saturday.
7. A day after thriving with two outs–Carolina hit .429 with two outs in the win over VCU–the Tar Heels weren’t as effective with two down on Saturday. They were just 1-for-9 in that situation against ECU.
8. East Carolina escaping unscathed in the top of the first inning felt like an important moment. Pirate starter Luke Payne labored through a 24-pitch frame and eventually loaded the bases, but was able to strike out Cooper Nicholson to end the inning. On a day when ECU needed to make some key pitches on the mound, that was a big one.
9. The zero was heightened when East Carolina immediately put up runs in the bottom of the inning. DeCaro needed four more pitches than Payne, but the Pirates made them more productive, plating two runs. The most damaging part—their three hits came on 0-2, 1-2 and 0-2 pitches.
10. That was part of the issue on a day that wasn’t a great outing for DeCaro. The junior battled through three and two-thirds without his best stuff, allowing six hits and walking three.
11. In all, the first couple of innings couldn’t have gone much worse. A potential second inning rally was erased when review determined Carter French leaned into what was initially ruled a hit by pitch, and the Heels eventually left another runner in scoring position, making it three left in scoring position through the first two frames. And yet, Carolina kept fighting. ECU has gotten plenty of attention for the way they have competed this year, and that’s true. But Saturday’s UNC victory was a gritty one.
12. The advantage of going to 2-0 in the regional: Carolina now gets to watch VCU and ECU do battle tomorrow at noon and use up more pitching. Then the Heels just need one win over the winner of that game, while the ECU-VCU victor would have to beat Carolina twice. It will be interesting to see how Forbes and Bryant Gaines deploy the UNC pitching in tomorrow’s game. Folger Boaz would be the regular starter, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see McDuffie for a third straight day.
