Tar Heels taken down by Coastal Carolina

Wednesday night’s start against No. 9 Coastal Carolina could not have gone much worse for North Carolina pitcher Jimmy Messer.

The sophomore right-hander allowed four runs in 2/3 of an inning as the No. 21 Tar Heels suffered their worst non-conference defeat of the season, 12-4.

“It’s certainly deflating when you’re down 4-0 right out of the gate against a really good team and you know you’ve got an uphill battle the rest of the game,” UNC coach Mike Fox said.

Messer threw just 21 pitches on the evening and walked the first two Chanticleers he faced. After recording the first out on a sacrifice bunt, he yielded two runs on a ground ball single up the middle and two more on a mammoth blast to left field by Adam Rice.

By the time right fielder Brian Goodwin chased down a long fly ball off the bat of Daniel Bowman, Messer’s night was finished.

“He can’t throw strikes,” Fox said. “He’s had one good outing against Georgia Tech … and since then he hasn’t been able to find the strike zone.”

Any hope of a Tar Heel comeback was extinguished in the top of the third inning.

Reliever Greg Holt was bailed out twice in the inning, first by center fielder Mike Cavasinni on a ball laced into the gap in left and later by a nifty backhanded spear on the part of his first basemen, Dillon Hazlett.

But Holt’s luck ran out when Coastal’s Bowman smacked a three-run homer that just cleared the wall in straightaway center.

“I thought I did have a play on the ball,” Cavasinni said. “I guess it just kept carrying.”

The Tar Heels’ pitching woes were exacerbated by a pair of sloppy mental errors.

In the fifth inning, after Rice hit a single to left field, Ben Bunting overthrew shortstop Ryan Graepel, allowing Rice to advance to second.

Two batters later, Hazlett dropped a pickoff attempt from relief pitcher Cody Penny that skittered off the runner and brought in the run that put the Chanticleers ahead 11-3.

“It’s silly errors for us,” Fox said. “The type of errors that we’re making, for me, are more disconcerting than the number.”

The loss marks the third straight year the Tar Heels have lost to the Chanticleers during the regular season.

Though UNC holds an NCAA regional victory and a super regional series win against Coastal during this time span, Fox expressed some skepticism about the potential for another postseason rematch.

“Gosh, I hope we’re in a regional,” he said. “They’re gonna be in one, certainly. If we don’t start playing better, that’ll be a moot point.”

The Tar Heels will look to shore up their spot in the NCAA Tournament when they kick off the second half of their ACC schedule with a three-game series at Miami starting Friday.

“You’ve got to have a short memory,” Fox said.

“The great thing about baseball is you don’t have to live with losses very long.”



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