UNC softball retains early lead in win against UNC-Greensboro

In the North Carolina softball team’s regular season home finale, it pulled out a 7-3 win, despite being outhit at the plate — but with the help of being hit several times from the mound.

The Spartans’ bats topped the Tar Heels’ 12-8, but their pitchers hit five UNC batters.

That allowed UNC to take an early 6-0 lead after scoring five runs in the second inning. Only three of those runs were produced by UNC hits.

UNC-G’s Nicole Thomas replaced redshirt junior Raeanne Hanks in the bottom of the second inning. Hanks walked three batters and only struck out one Tar Heel.

Three UNC batters also reached base after being hit by a Hanks pitch, including UNC redshirt freshman Jenna Kelly, who was hit three times in the game.

Coach Donna Papa saw Kelly’s tendency to get hit as an advantage for the team.

“She’s been getting hit a lot,” Papa said.

“I don’t necessarily think she hangs over the plate, but you get hit by a pitch, you get on with a walk, you’re somebody that can potentially score for us, so that’s great.”

Papa pulled junior pitcher Lori Spingola from the mound before the top of the fifth inning, replacing her with Ashley Bone.

Bone allowed four of the Spartans’ hits and two runs, which shrunk North Carolina’s lead to 6-3.

Papa said the Spartan comeback wasn’t surprising, but it was enough to convince her to bring Spingola back to seal the game.

“They’re a team that works from behind a lot and has been known this year to come back in later innings,” Papa said. “I just felt that the momentum was starting to shift a little bit, and Lori was doing a good job shutting them down.”

Spingola closed out the game without another Spartan run, but she accounted some of her success to impressive fielding.

“Our fielding has been really great lately,” Spingola said.

“I think we were top in the country for fielding in the beginning of the season, and we’ve been sticking to it the whole season.”

Some of that impressive fielding came from third baseman Constance Orr, who caught a pop-fly in top of the sixth.

Orr then overthrew the ball to first base, though UNC was eventually able to tag the UNC-G runner at home. Orr didn’t let that error — UNC’s sole miscue Wednesday evening — keep her down.

“I was trying to go hard because I knew I had just made a throwing error earlier,” Orr said. “I was trying to make up for that.”

Orr came back in the bottom of the sixth to hit the only home run of the night.

Orr further atoned for her error in the bottom of the seventh when she caught another fly ball and made a double play to close the game — a big ending to the senior’s final game in Anderson Stadium.

“It was my last home game,” Orr said.

“I was trying to give my all, leave it on field.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.