Homers propel UNC to win

With the score tied at one in the fifth inning of Tuesday night’s 6-2 extra-inning victory against High Point, sophomore Jacob Stallings came to the plate with runners on second and third and nobody out.

A long fly ball out would have scored Ryan Graepel from third. A well-placed grounder would have, too.

Instead, Stallings popped out to shortstop. Then Mike Cavasinni hit another pop-up. Ben Bunting did the same, and the Tar Heels’ chance to take their first lead in the fifth was gone.

“That was frustrating, because coach preaches, ‘With a runner on third and less than two outs, you’ve gotta get him in,’” Stallings said. “‘However you can, you’ve just got to get him in.’”

Still, it would be unfair to place all of the blame on Stallings. Graepel would already have scored had he simply avoided running into coach Mike Fox while rounding third base. Graepel was on his way home from first after a throwing error by the High Point catcher.

But baseball is a game of redemption, and both Stallings and Graepel would make good later in the evening.

Stallings went first, hitting a solo blast to left field to give the Tar Heels the go-ahead run they’d missed out on just two innings earlier. The homer was the first of his college career.

“It’s amazing what the weight room can do,” Fox said. “His freshman year he’d have had to hit the ball twice to hit it out of here.”

High Point would tie the game in the eighth when the Panthers’ Matt Gantner was able to accomplish what the collision prevented Graepel from doing three innings earlier — scoring from first base on a throwing error.

But in the bottom of the 10th inning, Graepel didn’t need Gantner’s 90-foot head start.

With the bases loaded and nobody out, Graepel sent Corey Swickle’s 3-2 offering deep into the Chapel Hill night and the Tar Heels to their fourth victory in their last five games.

Five innings after standing at third base with nobody out, Graepel finally scored.

“Funny things happen in the game of baseball,” he said of his fifth-inning misfortunes. “I guess if I do end up scoring, then maybe I don’t get up in the last inning to get the hit. Looking back on it, I’m actually glad it happened.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.