Tar Heels Show Grit in Crucial Road Series Win over NC State
UNC overcame several obstacles en route to its first series victory since March
RALEIGH, N.C. — Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, a little more than 24 hours before its series opener against N.C. State, North Carolina arrived at Doak Field to practice.
At the time, four years had passed since the Tar Heels last visited Raleigh. And of the 43 players on their roster, only two — Clemente Inclan and Caden O’Brien — had played there before. That was unbeknownst to Mac Horvath, who, at one point in practice, asked Danny Serretti what the atmosphere is like on game days, assuming the fourth-year shortstop would know.
“I have no idea,” Serretti told him. “Expect the worse.”
Serretti’s comment was made in jest, referring to the intensity of the UNC-N.C. State rivalry. But it also summarized the mindset of many Tar Heel fans heading into the team’s final road series.
Since the start of last season, UNC was 12-29 away from Boshamer Stadium, including 3-12 this year. Even more discouraging? The manner in which some of those losses came: in 14 innings at Miami, in 10 and 14 at Louisville, and, most recently, in 10 at Virginia, the most frustrating of them all given the Tar Heels’ 7-4 lead entering the final frame.
All that made the prospect of the Tar Heels going into the most hostile environment they can play in and taking one game, let alone the series, from their rival seem remote. Yet that’s exactly what they did, winning a weather-suspended series opener 8-7 before rallying from a 9-2 loss for a 7-6 series-clinching victory in the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader.
“We've been talking about toughness, and it’s one thing to win that series if we’re playing at home; it’s a different thing to do it on the road,” head coach Scott Forbes said. “If you look at us on the road this year, we haven’t been able to finish those games and get these series wins. … So we’ve been talking about, ‘Instead of hoping we win, when we have that opportunity, we’ve got to go for it.’ The second game, we just got beat, but I thought our guys went for it (all series).”
For much of the last two months, in which UNC went from 18-3 and ranked in the top 15 of most national polls to dropping five straight series entering Friday, Forbes had tried to ingrain such a mindset in his players. Whenever they faced any adversity or simply put their uniforms on, he repeated the same phrase — “this is freakin’ awesome” — with hopes of them realizing every opportunity should be cherished and they shouldn’t fear mistakes.
For a while, that message didn’t resonate. But with the Tar Heels locked in a back-and-forth affair with Charlotte last Tuesday — a game they eventually won, 4-3, in 10 innings — Serretti said he and his teammates started telling each other the same thing — “this is freakin’ awesome.”
“We started saying it when we were tied (at 3 entering the bottom of the sixth),” he said. “Instead of being all tight and worried, we started saying that, kind of as a joke, but it helps the guys relax and it’s just a new mentality, new mindset — just going out and getting it.”
As they did against N.C. State from the start.
UNC wasted little time jumping out to a 1-0 lead Friday, with Mac Horvath singling and then scoring on a first-inning fielder’s choice by Alberto Osuna. It was Max Carlson, however, who set the tone, taking the mound moments later and retiring the Wolfpack in order on nine pitches. Making his fourth straight Friday start, the sophomore showed no signs of backing down against N.C. State’s lineup, attacking the strike zone and mixing his pitches as well as he has all season.
Through four innings, the righty seemed well on his way to giving the Tar Heels their first seven-inning start of the season, allowing one run (unearned) on three hits and striking out five without a walk. Then came the first bit of adversity in a weekend full of it.
As soon as Wolfpack head coach Elliott Avent walked out of the dugout to pull his starter, Logan Whitaker, with a runner on second and one out in the fifth, the game went into a weather delay. Severe rain and lightning ultimately forced the contest to be suspended until Saturday, bringing Carlson’s start to an abrupt end and negating any advantage UNC might have had.
So often this season, such an obstacle has derailed the Tar Heels, and it appeared as if it might again after they quickly fell behind 3-2 when play resumed Saturday. But this time, they didn’t allow it. Vance Honeycutt and Hunter Stokely homered as part of a five-run sixth that gave UNC a 7-3 lead, and after N.C. State tied the score at 7, Gage Gillian tossed two scoreless innings of relief and Horvath hit an RBI sacrifice fly in the ninth to win Game 1 almost 21 hours after it started.
“Coach Forbes preached to the whole team just stick to your routine and the fact that the tougher team is going to win and the team that deals with all the adversity that came with this weekend is going to win,” said Serretti when asked about what it took to win the drawn-out opener. “Just stuck to the approach, didn't change anything, trusted what I got, just like all these guys did.”
As simple as that strategy might sound, it proved especially difficult to implement Sunday.
Playing their first doubleheader of the year, the Tar Heels again seized a 1-0 first-inning lead in Game 1, courtesy of a Serretti RBI single. N.C. State quickly erased that deficit, though, with a Tommy White homer in the bottom of the inning and never looked back, banging out 17 hits — including 11 off Brandon Schaeffer. That proved to be too much to overcome against starter Matt Willadsen, who allowed just two runs (one earned) on five hits while striking out nine in as many innings. The complete game marked the first against UNC this season.
In the 30 minutes between the end of that game and the start of the series finale, the Tar Heels could have very well stewed over their performance. Instead, they stuck to their new motto.
“It wasn’t freakin’ awesome that Willadsen has our number,” Serretti said. “But we were just out there like, ‘It’s freakin’ awesome that we have a chance to win a series.’”
While those sorts of conversations unfolded among the players, the coaches pondered a shakeup to the lineup.
One of UNC’s best players from the moment he stepped on campus, Honeycutt emerged as a lethal power-speed threat atop the lineup over the first month of the season. But upon hitting a bit of a freshman wall in early April, the staff opted to move him into the bottom third of the lineup, starting with the Georgia Tech series on April 15. In 11 games since then, including the first two against the Wolfpack, Honeycutt had shown signs of returning to form. So, looking for a jolt to the lineup, Forbes decided to pencil him into the cleanup spot for the first time for the finale.
That move yielded immediate results, as Honeycutt came to the plate with two outs in the first inning and launched a two-run homer over the left-field wall.
“I thought he’s looked great, and I thought we needed him in the top four,” Forbes said. “It was just whether or not we were going to lead him off or hit him in the four-hole. We just decided to hit him in the four-hole, and thank goodness (we did).”
Honeycutt’s homer, his 12th of the year, sent a clear message that the Tar Heels weren’t going to go down without a fight. But they knew N.C. State wouldn’t either.
As quickly as UNC seized its 2-0 lead, it lost it, as Devonte Brown and LuJames Groover led off the bottom of the first with back-to-back homers. Payton Green then went yard an inning later to give the Wolfpack a 4-2 lead. At that point, with one out in the second, Forbes turned to Gillian, who escaped the inning with a groundout and a strikeout.
That marked the start of a sensational effort by the Tar Heels’ bullpen, which, after a superb start to the season, entered the weekend having struggled mightily as of late. Gillian allowed only two baserunners in 2 2/3 scoreless innings before handing the ball off to Connor Bovair, who came in with no outs and a runner on second in a 4-4 game in the fifth and, pitching as aggressively as he has all year, sandwiched three strikeouts around an intentional walk.
After UNC took a 5-4 lead in the top of the sixth, N.C. State scratched across two runs on a bunt single and a pair of bloopers. Those proved to be the only runs that the 'pen surrendered, though.
“They kept us in the game and they kept on fighting,” Osuna said. “We feed off our pitchers’ energy, too, at the plate. We see how much they’re fighting, and we want to fight just as much.”
At times this season, that desire to help has hurt Osuna, causing him to expand his strike zone in clutch situations. And as many as those as he’s encountered this season, his first since joining the Tar Heels from Walters State, none felt bigger than when he came to the plate with one out and a runner on first in the top of the eighth.
Facing one of the ACC’s best arms in Chris Villaman, Osuna quickly fell behind 0-2, taking the first pitch for a strike and then swinging through a fastball. After fouling off another fastball, he told himself he couldn’t be late again. He ensured he wasn’t, jumping on the next pitch — a fastball down the middle — and sending it over the left-field wall for a colossal go-ahead homer.
“Huge swing of the bat,” said Davis Palermo, who was warming up in the third-base bullpen as Osuna’s homer sailed over the nearby fence. “We believed the entire time we were going to win that game, but that was definitely the moment where it was like, ‘Alright, let’s go. Now we’ve just got to go get it.’”
And it was up to Palermo to do just that.
Throughout the latter half of this season, in which Palermo has established himself as a bona fide weapon, Forbes has gone into almost every game hoping to have the righty on the mound in the ninth. Because of the team’s lack of innings from its starters and the bullpen’s recent troubles, though, he often found himself having to bring Palermo in earlier than he’d like. That wasn’t the case Sunday, as Gillian and Bovair allowed Forbes to call on Palermo in the eighth. And once on the hill, he didn’t disappoint.
After tossing a scoreless eighth, Palermo took the mound in the bottom of the ninth with a one-run lead and walked the leadoff batter on four pitches. Any hope the Wolfpack had was quickly dashed, though, as the Chapel Hill native struck out the next three batters — including White, he of 20 home runs and 59 RBIs — on 13 pitches (11 fastballs) to seal the win.
The magnitude of the series victory wasn’t lost on the Tar Heels (27-18, 10-14 ACC) postgame, with Osuna, Palermo and Serretti recognizing that it can potentially carry them down the stretch and into the postseason. In the moment, though, that paled in comparison to the significance of beating their rival on the road.
“Baseball-wise, I don’t think it’s crazy to say this is a really, really big rivalry,” Palermo said. “It feels unbelievable to come in here and take the series from them.”
How about freakin’ awesome?