Baseball: Heels drop _¶ rst series to Duke since '01

The North Carolina players seemed to wear their hats inside out more often than not Sunday.

But even with four intense innings of rally caps No. 1 UNC's comeback was not enough to overcome a 9-1 deficit.

Duke's 10-9 victory Sunday gave the Blue Devils the series win two games to one — the first regular season series loss suffered by UNC since 2007 and the first to Duke since 2001.

The reason behind the results for UNC remains the same: As their starting pitching goes so do the Tar Heels.

This weekend North Carolina's starting pitching was shaky at best. UNC's three starters combined to allow 15 runs in 14 2/3 innings of work" capped off by Matt Harvey allowing seven runs in two innings Sunday.

""Our pitchers are our backbone"" third baseman Kyle Seager said. We know that's not going to happen again. Our starting pitching is too good for that stuff to happen.""

The damage to Harvey came in a hurry. He retired two of the first three batters he faced in the second inning but then allowed seven straight Blue Devils to reach base safely.

A two-run home run by Will Piwnica-Worms gave Duke a 2-0 lead. Five batters and two runs later"" Jeremy Gould crushed a three-run bomb to left field.

Seven runs. No outs recorded.

""We usually don't give up the big inning — we pride ourselves on preventing the big inning"" coach Mike Fox said.

But the Tar Heels didn't go down without a fight. A five-run sixth inning put them within striking distance, and a Mark Fleury solo homer in the seventh made it a two-run game.

With each hit, confidence rose in the crowd and in the UNC dugout.

It was the most electrified I've ever seen it"" Seager said. The atmosphere was unbelievable; the energy was unbelievable.""

Duke's offense was just too much"" though. First baseman Nate Freiman hit an RBI double in the eighth that proved to be the difference.

""I think Duke is the best team we've played offensively" Fox said.

They had great plate approaches didn't strike out a whole lot" especially the last couple days. And they're tough to pitch to.""

It was the second straight win for Duke (14-7" 5-4 ACC) after the Tar Heels took the opener 8-5 Friday. In Saturday's game UNC (17-4 5-3 ACC) made four errors in the field and eventually fell" 5-4.

""Baseball is a game of inches"" shortstop Ryan Graepel said Saturday. And it seemed like we came up on the short end of the stick a bunch of times today.""

Dustin Ackley contributed eight hits during the weekend"" and Seager and Levi Michael each added five.

But allowing 20 combined runs proved too much to overcome for a UNC team that showed a lot of fight.

""I'm real proud of my team for putting ourselves in position to have a chance to win late"" Fox said. It was just a little bit too big a hole to climb out of.""



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.