Baseball: Fall World Series gives UNC look at newcomers

The freshmen baseball players might be too scared to shower with the returning players this fall, but for Mike Fox, this year’s fall World Series was all about them.

“We know what our veterans can do. We’ve watched them for a year, two years, sometimes three,” Fox said. “It’s the young guys, obviously, who get most of the looks in the fall. We just want to see guys with a little confidence who want to compete.”

Of the new faces, no one shined as brightly in the six-game series as Jesse Wierzbicki. Granted, he’s a junior college transfer, but he announced his intention to grab the starting catcher’s job by going 7-13, with two doubles and three RBIs.

“He and Jacob (Stallings) are our two catchers; you have to have two catchers during the course of 60 to 65 games,” Fox said.

Fox went on to say that Wierzbicki would more than likely be the designated hitter or first baseman on days when he wasn’t behind the plate.

Of the freshmen, Tommy Coyle stood out, going 9 for 21 in the series while playing second base for the blue team.

“They’re a bunch of great kids,” senior Mike Cavasinni said.

“They’re coming out and growing in new ways to help Carolina baseball. A lot of them are shy when they’re coming in. They wouldn’t even get in the showers with us.”

As for the pitchers, Jimmy Messer and Colin Bates saved the two best starts of the fall World Series for last. The pair combined for 12 innings and three earned runs between them.

“All of our young pitchers have showed us that they’re capable,” Fox said. “They’ve all got to work to improve, they need to keep the ball out of the middle of the plate.”

For the most part, except for two-run homers by Tarron Robinson and Seth Baldwin, both sides were able to keep the ball out of the middle of the plate Tuesday, as the two teams managed only 12 hits in nine innings.

Robinson also hit a game-changing home run on Saturday to give the white team the win in game one of the second series.

“We were able to bring some pitchers out of the bullpen in certain situations, which is the only time we get to do that,” Fox said. “In that regard, we got Chris Munnelly in the game late, we got our lefties in to face some lefty hitters, which is something they’ll have to do in the spring.”

While this was the team’s 20th intrasquad scrimmage, only the last six have had the scoreboard on, complete with PA sound and a real line score.

The fall World Series was made up of two best-of-three series. The white team (which changed into navy shirts on Tuesday) took the first series 2-1.

The white team wasted little time, winning the first two games of the next series before the last game ended in a tie on Tuesday.

“My team won four games in a row,” Cavasinni said. “They battled hard, they played well, and they didn’t give up, certainly. It’s a good thing to end the fall on a good note. You end with a tie, so that no one is mad.”



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