With just a couple weeks left in the college baseball regular season, a lot of the midweek games are just for staying tuned up ahead of the big weekend series and the ACC and NCAA Tournaments. For the North Carolina Tar Heels on Tuesday night, they seemed pretty tuned up.
Hosting Campbell, the Tar Heels’ offense was firing, as they put up double digits in a 10-1 victory over the Camels.
UNC took an initial led in the third inning, and added to it in the fifth and sixth, but it wasn’t until the seventh until they fully broke things open. The game’s biggest blow came via a bases-loaded Alex Madera double that scored everyone, turning a 5-1, still-somewhat-in-the-balance game into a 8-1 rout.
As you might expect in a game where you crack the 10-run mark, plenty of Tar Heels had good games at the plate. Six of the nine Carolina hitters to step to the plate recorded at least one hit. However, the aforementioned Madera and Rom Kellis had the biggest days of anyone. Madera had the big three-RBI double and also drew a walk, as he scored two of the Heels’ runs on the day. In addition to him, Kellis had a three-hit day, including a home run and three RBI. He also scored on a wild pitch to get the Heels to the double digit mark.
On the mound, with Carolina getting last weekend off, they gave this midweek start to Jason DeCaro. He came up with a very solid outing, allowing just one run on five hits in his five innings. His sophomore season hasn’t always been the easiest, but he’s now lowered his ERA by more than a full run over his five games in the last month and change.
Making sure they’re firing was important considering who the next series is against. Starting on Thursday, Carolina will be hosting a certain NC State Wolfpack team for a weekend series. While their series at Miami last weekend didn’t go great for them, the Wolfpack have otherwise been pretty good of late. They swept Clemson a couple weeks ago, and have won 13 of their last 18 games in total. Things are generally pretty interesting in the baseball version of the UNC-State rivalry, and this weekend probably won’t be any different, with both teams fighting for NCAA Tournament seeding in addition to everything else.