North Carolina baseball will play first game of the season against Xavier

After a long winter of batting practice, weight lifting and intra-squad scrimmages, opening day is finally here, and the No. 3 North Carolina baseball team is itching to take the field against new competition.

“All our guys want to do right now is see somebody else,” coach Mike Fox said. “I mean, the New York Yankees could roll in here, and it would be better than scrimmaging against each other. They’re tired of that.”

Well the Yankees aren’t coming to Boshamer Stadium this year, but today at 3 p.m. the Musketeers of Xavier will kick off the 2012 season against the Heels.

Due to the threat of rain on Sunday, the two teams will play a doubleheader Friday and the series finale Saturday at 1 p.m.

Xavier finished last season 30-27 and 14-10 in the Atlantic 10, a record good enough for fourth place in the league.

The Musketeers lost a lot of their offensive production from last season, including Ben Thomas, who led the team in RBIs and home runs and was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in June.

Though Xavier has taken a big hit offensively, their pitching staff is still largely intact.

The Musketeers return all three of their weekend starters from last season, including right hander Vinny Nittoli, who went 7-1 last season with a 3.75 ERA, and lefty Jon Richard who was 5-5 with a 3.76 ERA.

“They’ve got most of their pitching back from last year it seems,” Fox said. “They played everybody tough last year. They played everybody in the Atlantic 10 tough, if you look at the scores.

“(UNC-)Charlotte, for one, was the winner in that league and they played them in one- or two-run games.”

The Tar Heels are used to facing strong pitching, though, since that’s all they’ve had the chance to swing at since last season.

“It’s not really fun facing our pitching staff,” said Colin Moran, last year’s ACC leader in RBIs. “We’ve got a really good one, so I think it will make us better in the long run.”

The Tar Heels are going to start Kent Emanuel in the first game today, and he’ll be squaring off against Nittoli. Richard will start game two for the Musketeers.

The Tar Heels are listing Chris O’Brien and Benton Moss, both freshmen, as probable starters for games two and three.

Regardless of who’s on the mound, the Tar Heels expect to have to bring their A-game to defend their home turf this season.

“Everybody that’s going to walk in here wants to beat us and beat us bad,” UNC outfielder Chaz Frank said. “They’re going to throw their best guys and they’re going to use their best guys every day, so it’s going to be a challenge to grind it out every day and play as hard as we can.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.