Late rally lifts UNC to 6-5 baseball win at NC State
With 13 walks and five errors, it wasn’t the cleanest baseball game between the ACC’s division leaders.
North Carolina got a clutch hit from Ike Freeman to overcome its mistakes in a 6-5 road win at N.C. State on Friday night.
Freeman’s double in the eighth inning gave the Coastal Division-leading Tar Heels (29-13, 16-6 ACC), a 6-4 lead.
“We tried to give it away there,” UNC coach Mike Fox said.
The Wolfpack (31-9, 15-7) loaded the bases with three walks and then scored a run on a fourth walk in the eighth.
Down 6-5, N.C. State had its top power hitter, left fielder Brett Kinneman, up with the bases loaded and two outs.
With closer Josh Hiatt suspended, Fox turned to freshman Joey Lancellotti to face the ACC’s leader in home runs (13).
The freshman righty, who walked in a run to make it 6-5, worked a 2-2 count to Kinneman and then got the Wolfpack lefthander looking on an inside pitch that was called a third strike. Much of the 3,048 sellout crowd did not like home plate umpire Barry Chambers’ call, neither did N.C. State’s bench.
Lancellotti walked Evan Edwards in the ninth before got struck out Patrick Bailey, who homered in the fourth, and Brock Deatherage to give the Tar Heels their 15th win in 18 games.
The two teams, both ranked in the top 10 of the RPI, had met on April 17 in Durham and the Wolfpack picked up an 8-3 nonconference win.
That loss, one of only three in the past month, lingered for the Tar Heels, who weren’t crisp in that game, either.
“After coming off a loss from the Durham game, we knew we could play a whole lot better than that,” Freeman said.
Each side made more mistakes than they wanted. UNC left fielder Ashton McGee misplayed a ball in the second inning which helped the Wolfpack take a 2-0 lead.
“It wasn’t really all that clean played of a game, I didn’t think on both ends,” Fox said.
McGee atoned for the error with a two-out, two-run single in the third to push the Heels in front 3-2.
Bailey evened the game with a solo home run in the fourth and then State took a 4-3 lead with an RBI-double by Kinneman in the fifth.
Two walks got N.C. State reliever Kent Klyman in trouble in the eighth and Freeman came up with the bases loaded and no outs. The sophomore shortstop was able to drive a double into the gap in right center to score two runs.
Bailey, State’s catcher, tried to catch Freeman making a wide turn at second but Edwards couldn’t come up with the throw allowing UNC to plate a third run.
This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 10:07 PM with the headline "Late rally lifts UNC to 6-5 baseball win at NC State."