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The Daily Tar Heel

Stranded runners sink the Tar Heels against Gardner-Webb

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Pitcher Benton Moss prays before the start of an inning, a custom he practices before the start of each inning.

Opportunity reared its head in the bottom of the sixth inning for No. 4 North Carolina, a rarity on Wednesday behind Gardner-Webb’s stingy pitching.

Trailing 4-2 with the bases loaded, the Tar Heels had three outs to get any of their base-runners home.

The Tar Heels advanced one runner home, not nearly enough.

“You’re behind, and you get a chance,” coach Mike Fox said. “The doors open for you a little bit and you’ve got the bases loaded and no outs, you’ve got to do more than one run.”

Especially in a game like Wednesday’s. Sure the Tar Heels had three more innings to score runs, but baseball is never about the opportunities that could arise. It’s about connecting the ones that do.

The Tar Heels didn’t this time.

“I still thought we were going to win the game,” catcher Jacob Stallings said. “We were getting guys on. I still thought it was a matter of time before we get that big hit. It just never happened. Cody and I couldn’t come through in that situation.”

Stallings popped out to left field and junior Cody Stubbs struck out swinging once the bases were loaded. And after Brian Holberton drew a walk, second baseman Mike Zolk grounded out to end the inning.

“That was a huge missed opportunity,” Stubbs said. “Those are times where you have to capitalize on that, and that’s how you win ball games. That was a huge part of the game we missed out on.”

Capitalizing hasn’t been the Tar Heels’ strong point in the past week. North Carolina has played a lot recently — five games in six days. But in UNC’s last five games, the Tar Heels have stranded 51 base runners, including 17 against Gardner-Webb.

Wednesday’s sixth inning was nothing different.

To complicate a Tar Heel comeback, Gardner-Webb turned that momentum into three seventh-inning runs.

“I thought that really kept the momentum in their dugout,” Fox said. “After that they really, really felt like they were going to win the game, and that was too much for us to overcome.”

Hobbs Johnson walked the Runnin’ Bulldogs’ Dusty Quattlebaum to start the seventh. Gardner-Webb bunted him over to second and Johnson was pulled after 2 2/3 innings of work.

Junior Cody Penny took over and gave up three runs, two of which he earned, after giving up three consecutive hits.

“When you blow opportunities like that it gives teams confidence, and they can build off that,” Stubbs said. “That’s what they did.”

The Tar Heels were practically fighting an uphill battle from start.

Gardner-Webb designated hitter Brad Collins ripped a home run to left field in the second inning on starting pitcher Luis Paula after he made what Fox called a freshman mistake when he was ahead in the count.

“It ain’t high school anymore,” Fox said. “You can’t just lay it in there. He laid it in there and the guy deposited it. And even the 3-0 pitch before, we felt like he just laid it in there. If the guy had the green light, he’d have probably hit the home run one swing earlier.”

The home run put Gardner-Webb up 4-1 early.

The sixth-inning kept UNC down for good.

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“We just didn’t get many hits with runners in scoring position. You’re not going to win when you do that,” Stallings said.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.