UNC Baseball Remains Undefeated After Series Against East Carolina
East Carolina baseball fell to the fifth-ranked UNC Tar Heels in their recent series, getting completely swept. The two North Carolina programs have had a hard-fought rivalry since 2020, where ECU has held the upper hand. However, this series looked a little bit different. The Heels dominated the Pirates, scoring 19 total runs to the Pirates’ 10 in the series.
The young East Carolina team played a tight defensive game on February 22nd in Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the first game of the series. The nationally ranked Tar Heels were held to only two runs. Despite standing strong defensively, East Carolina baseball was unable to deliver offensively. UNC’s defense kept the Pirates from scoring a single run, coming up on top 2-0.
For the second game in Chapel Hill, the action picked up offensively. Both teams put their foot on the gas and produced run after run. In the fourth inning, the Pirates looked promising, taking the lead with four runs after a two-run home run from one of the few returners in ECU’s batting lineup, Walker Barron, that put the Pirates ahead. The Tar Heels were not so easily set back, answering with eight unanswered runs. Boshamer Stadium remained a weak spot for the Pirates as they headed back to Greenville off of an 11-6 loss.
To close the series on February 24th, the Pirates attempted to get comfortable at home. First on the board, ECU scored a run in the bottom of the first. The Heels, determined to break their losing streak in Clark Le-Clair Stadium, answered with three runs in the second and did not stop there, clocking two more in the fourth inning and another in the sixth. The Tar Heel offense was just too much for the young East Carolina pitching staff to handle. Carolina’s pitching staff, however, had themselves quite a day. Aidan Haugh made himself right at home in Greenville, dishing out 10 strikeouts to ECU’s struggling offense. ECU attempted a comeback in the bottom of the eighth, but despite a home run from pinch hitter John Collins, they didn’t have it in them.
The unranked Pirates did their best to hold their own against the fifth-ranked, undefeated Tar Heels, but holding their own was simply not the same as out-playing. The Pirates head into their mid-week matchup on a four-game losing streak, hungry for their next win. UNC, however, will ride out the high of finally conquering the Pirates and cling tightly to their seven-game winning streak. They hope to continue climbing the national rankings.
