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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC men’s baseball suffers fielding woes

Photo: Fielding woes halt Tar Heels’ rally attempts (Elizabeth Mendoza)
Baseball v. State, 4/17 lost 10-0

RALEIGH — It was a comedy of errors for the North Carolina baseball team Saturday night at N.C. State’s Doak Field, but UNC coach Mike Fox wasn’t even remotely amused by the proceedings.

Two batters after his team committed the third of its three errors in the seventh inning of what would be a stomach-churning 8-7 loss, Fox sauntered onto the field toward home plate umpire A.J. Lostaglio.

He did so in part to protest Lostaglio’s decision to eject him moments earlier for arguing that a 1-2 pitch to N.C. State’s Pratt Maynard ought to have been called a strike, but more to let the lid off what had become a boiling cauldron of frustration.

Head bobbling and arms waving frantically, Fox argued and eventually walked off the field, but UNC’s nightmare seventh frame was not yet complete.

In a cruel twist, pitcher R.C. Orlan threw a wild pitch later in the at-bat to allow Brett Williams to score from third, the fourth of a season-high five unearned runs the Tar Heels allowed on the evening.

“I was voicing my displeasure with my players, I just take it out on the umpire,” Fox said. “I can’t yell at my players because that’s not good coaching, so I yell at the one person on the field I can yell at and it’s halfway decent protocol.”

UNC’s unpleasant evening began in earnest three innings earlier, when Chris Diaz’s two-out grounder was fielded cleanly by UNC second baseman Tommy Coyle along the edge of the outfield grass not far from first base. But instead of ending the inning, Coyle’s throw sailed wide, allowing Cameron Conner to score what was at the time the tying run.

“I just threw it away,” Coyle said. “I just need to keep taking ground balls. It’s that easy, I guess.”

Usually sure-handed shortstop Levi Michael allowed a grounder to sneak under his backhand stab one batter later, and the Wolfpack ended the inning with a 5-3 lead.

It was Coyle that made the throwing error to start the bottom of the seventh, his third of the series, in which he went 1-for-13 at bat.

The Tar Heels’ lapses in the field were compounded by the relative fielding wizardry on display by the homestanding Wolfpack.

With Michael on second after a leadoff double in the fifth, N.C. State second baseman Matt Bergquist made a spectacular leaping grab, fully extended to his right, to snare a smash off the bat of Colin Moran.

The Tar Heels were again rallying in the eighth when Ben Bunting hit what would have been at least a single were it not for a jumping catch by the Wolfpack’s 6-foot-3 first baseman Harold Riggins.

Despite the self-inflicted nature of the one-run loss, UNC pitcher Chris Munnelly said Saturday was no more painful than UNC’s other two losses this weekend — and that he and his teammates will use it to make them better in the future.

“A loss is a loss, it hurts just as bad if you lose by 20 or if you lose by one, especially to State,” Munnelly said. “I think it’s really going to motivate us to work harder.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.

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