University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Maine
North Carolina Takes A 4-0 Victory Over Maine
June 3, 2011 | Baseball
June 3, 2011
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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - The coach who led North Carolina to four College World Series missed the opening game of his team's chase for No. 5. A freshman made sure the Tar Heels didn't miss a beat.
Kent Emanuel threw eight shutout innings in his NCAA tournament debut, leading North Carolina to a 4-0 victory over Maine on Friday night in the Chapel Hill Regional.
"The story of the game for us was Kent Emanuel," said associate head coach Scott Forbes, who ran the team with Mike Fox attending to what a team spokesman said was a personal matter.
Jacob Stallings hit a three-run homer as part of a four-run first inning for the Tar Heels (46-14), who managed just three hits after that but advanced to play James Madison on Saturday.
"I wanted to treat it just like a normal game and stay in the same routine," Emanuel said.
Keith Bilodeau (10-3) struck out six and allowed five hits in eight innings, but gave up all four runs for Maine (32-23), which will play Florida International in an elimination game.
"Just one bad pitch, when I look back," Bilodeau said. "When you play a team like UNC, it's really important that you don't let what happens early in the game affect you. I know that we're a good enough team that, I know even if we go down early, we're always in the game."
Jesse Wierzbicki had three hits and an RBI for North Carolina. The No. 3 national seed holds one of the top eight overall seeds for the fourth time in five years and is chasing its fifth College World Series berth since 2006.
The Tar Heels are the nation's winningest team in NCAA tournament play during that span, and they claimed their 33rd postseason victory since then against the Black Bears while improving to 13-0 in home regional games since '06.
They had to win this one without Fox, the coach who took them to Omaha every year from 2006-09.
The only runs of the night came in the Tar Heels' half of the first.
Wierzbicki's two-out single brought home Chaz Frank, and two batters later, Stallings crushed a 2-1 pitch well over the left-field fence for his fourth homer of the season, making it 4-0.
But after that inning, though, North Carolina managed just two hits both by Wierzbicki until Frank singled in the seventh.
