University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Princeton
Tar Heels Use Big Inning To Down Princeton
March 15, 2011 | Baseball
March 15, 2011
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - No. 15 North Carolina used a nine-run eighth inning to beat Princeton (2-6) 11-2 Tuesday afternoon at Boshamer Stadium. The Tar Heels picked up three hits from Tommy Coyle, while Ben Bunting drove in a team-high three runs in the win. Cody Stiles improved to 3-0 on the mound by tossing 6.2 innings of one-run baseball. UNC will head to Blacksburg, Va. later this week to take on Virginia Tech in an ACC weekend series.
Jesse Wierzbicki extended his career-long hit streak to 10 games on Tuesday when he connected on his fourth home run of the year in the bottom of the second inning. Princeton's Kevin Link challenged Wierzbicki with a fastball inside which the senior first baseman rifled foul down the third base line. Link threw another fastball on the very next pitch that Wierzbicki tattooed over the right center field fence giving Carolina the 1-0 lead.
Stiles worked his way out of trouble in the top half of the second when the Tigers put runners on the corners with only one out but the sophomore right-hander picked up back-to-back strikeouts to end the frame.
Princeton would put just two runners on the rest of the afternoon against Stiles as he allowed a single in the third and an error extended the inning in the fourth.
Following a perfect fifth and sixth innings from Stiles the Tar Heels provided an insurance run with a two-out rally. Seth Baldwin took a Link offering and drove it into the right field corner for a double before Ben Bunting laced a single to right field to score Baldwin and extend the Carolina lead to 2-0.
Princeton's Sam Mulroy cut the deficit in half to lead off the top of the seventh when he hit a solo home run to left field. Stiles settled in and got the next two batters via strike out but a pair of singles form the eight and nine batters would end the day for the sophomore.
Cody Penny came on to get an infield pop up to end the top of the seventh.
Carolina put a pair of runners in scoring position with two outs in the bottom of the seventh but were unable to come up with a run-scoring hit.
Things would change in the eighth, however, as Carolina sent 14 batters to the plate as the Tar Heels exploded for nine runs on seven hits.
Tommy Coyle, Colin Moran, Jacob Stallings, Parks Jordan, Chaz Frank and Ben Bunting all tallied RBI hits in the eighth inning for Carolina. Moran and Stallings went back-to-back with two-run doubles in the breakout inning, while Bunting added insult to injury with a two-run single for the 10th and 11th runs of the ball game.
Cody Penny picked up the first out of the ninth before he made way for Tate Parrish who closed out the rout for Carolina.
The Tar Heels will return to action on Friday when they travel to Blacksburg, Va. for a three-game ACC series against Virginia Tech beginning at 5:30 p.m.
