University of North Carolina Athletics
This Day In Tar Heel Baseball History: April 7
April 7, 2020 | Baseball
CHAPEL HILL - North Carolina will begin to look at "On This Day in Tar Heel History", as Tom Jensen will share his memories as an avid Tar Heel fan and regular at Boshamer Stadium.
April 7
For today's version of 'This Day in Recent Carolina Baseball History' we go back to 2006 for a big series opening ACC win on the road at Miami and to 2009 for a win at the Bosh over ECU that kept the good feelings going in Tar Heel Nation after winning the national championship in basketball the night before. Plus a bonus appearance from Tom Brady!
When Miami made its first appearance in Chapel Hill as a member of the ACC in 2005 it didn't go so well for the Heels. The Canes scored 42 runs over the course of the weekend. They had won the College World Series twice since the last time we had even been to it, and it would be understandable after that trip to the Bosh for us to wonder if we were even on that level.
On April 7, 2006 in Coral Gables we started to learn that the answer to that question was yes. Reid Fronk got hit by a pitch to lead off the game (he and Kyle Datres are the true connoisseurs of getting hit by a pitch in recent program history.) Chad Flack singled to move him over to 3rd and he came in on a wild pitch to make it 1-0.
To give you an idea of how good this Miami team was, in the bottom of the first Andrew Miller faced Jemile Weeks (six big league seasons), Jon Jay (10 big league seasons and counting), Yonder Alonso (10 big league seasons and counting), and Danny Valencia (9 big league seasons.) That's a pretty stacked college baseball lineup- but Andrew Miller put them down without a hit.
Benji Johnson hit a solo home run in the second to make it 2-0 and in the 3rd the lead grew to 4-0 thanks to a rally highlighted by a Reid triple, a Flack hit-by-pitch, a Seth Williams single, a Jay Cox sacrifice fly, and a Tim Federowicz hit-by-pitch.
In the 3rd and the 4th the Canes got some runs- you weren't going to shut out that offense- but both times the Heels struck right back.
With the lead cut to 4-1, Bryan Steed went deep to left on the very first pitch of the 4th inning to get it back to 5-1. With the lead down to 5-3 in the 5th, Cox hit a lead off double and Federowicz blasted one out to left to get it right back to 7-3. The lead grew to 8-3 in the 6th on a triple by Flack and an RBI single by Williams. Pretty impressive to score in each of the first 6 innings on the road at Miami.
The Canes fought back, scoring 4 runs in the 7th to get the deficit down to 8-7.
But then they had to deal with Andrew Carignan for the rest of the game. AC- perhaps the most dominant reliever in the history of the program- walked the first batter he faced in the 8th. That was all Miami got the rest of the game. With a runner on first up came that Jay-Alonso-Valencia trio- 29 years of big league experience. He set them down in order, including a strike out of Valencia on three pitches to close the inning.
In the 9th he didn't bother with anything other than strikeouts and with his 2 inning, no hits, four strikeout performance outing he had earned the save and the Heels had the Friday night opening win in a game that showed the program had come a long way from even just the previous year.
On April 7, 2009, Tar Heel fans were exultant in the wake of a dominant victory over Michigan State in Detroit in the basketball championship the night before. But the baseball team had an important game that day too- our record on the season to date was an impressive 24-7...but we were facing off against an ECU team that was off to an even better start at 25-5.
I woke up that morning at my parents' house in Ann Arbor and hit the road by 7 AM so that I could get back to the Bosh for the game. Conditions were blizzard like on the Ohio Turnpike and it snowed all the way to Virginia but we powered through and got back to the very cold but at least not snowing Bosh in time for the game.
There wasn't a lot of offense that chilly night but it gives us a good opportunity to recognize a great Tar Heel pitcher who may not get the appreciation he deserves. Patrick Johnson would have been a weekend starter anywhere else in the country his sophomore year. But with a weekend rotation of Alex White, Adam Warren, and Matt Harvey- all future big leaguers- he had to put in midweek duty for us.
He was on that night against the Pirates- he threw 6.1 scoreless innings, only allowed 1 hit, and struck out 11. That ECU team averaged just under 9 runs a game for the season and had a team batting average of .339 so that really shows how impressive Johnson's shutdown performance was.
In the bottom of the 3rd Garrett Gore hit a two-out single and then Dustin Ackley lifted a fly ball to RF that the Pirate fielder dropped. That allowed Garrett to come all the way around and score and Ackley to take 2nd. The Pirates intentionally walked Levi Michael because they preferred to face a future major league all star in Kyle Seager. The choice didn't wear well as Kyle singled to center to bring in Dusty and make it 2-0.
In the 7th, Gore got things started again, reaching on an error. He moved to second when Levi walked and Seager brought him around again, this time on a single to left. The Heels led 3-0 and I don't think the Pirates intentionally walked anyone to get to Kyle Seager anymore after that.
Things got a little dicey for the Heels in the top of the 8th- the Pirates got runners on the corners with 2 outs. Garrett Davis- an eastern North Carolina native himself- came in to the game and struck out the hitter on a full count to get out of the jam. The guy Garrett struck out was hitting .311- and that made him the lowest hitting Pirates regular! That entire lineup was .300 hitters but the Heels shut them out through eight innings.
In the 9th things got even dicier. The Pirates loaded the bases with nobody out and then the next batter singled, scoring a run. The Pirate who had started the play on 1st thought they were also going to send the second runner home and rounded 2nd headed for 3rd. They held the second runner at 3rd though and Mike Cavasinni made a heads up play, throwing to Ryan Graepel to pick off the runner trying to get back to 2nd. That got the Heels a huge first out of the inning.
That left runners on the corners. Logan Munson was on the bump for the Heels and on a 3-1 count coaxed a ground ball to 2nd that turned into a 4-6-3 double play to get him the save and the Heels a huge 3-1 win.
Each of the last 2 basketball national championships have been followed by an exciting win over ECU at the Bosh the next evening. This would not be the last time the Heels and Pirates faced off in Chapel Hill in 2009 but we will return to that in June.
Quick hits for April 7th:
-It may have been cold at the Bosh on this date in 2009 but anyone who had been on the team in 2007 probably felt it was tropical compared to where they'd been two years earlier on that date. Not only was it 31 degrees that Saturday in Boston, but the team had to play a double header.
-The Heels won the first game 7-2. Reid Fronk had three hits (including a triple and a double), and Josh Horton (including a double and three RBI), Seth Williams (including a double and 2 RBI), and Kyle Seager all had multi hit games as well. Matt Danford got the win with 2.2 innings of scoreless, hitless relief. Andrew Carignan came in with the bases loaded and no one out in the bottom of the 9th in his New England homecoming and retired the side in order without letting any of them score for the save.
-The Heels also won the second game of the DH 7-2, but it took 2 days. The Heels led 6-1 in the 9th when at 6:22 PM the game was suspended for darkness, something you usually only hear about happening in games 100 years ago. The Eagles have a nice new stadium now but a decade ago they were playing in a facility with little to no lighting.
-Dustin Ackley led the way for the Heels with four hits, including two doubles. Tim Federowicz (including a double and three RBI) and Seth Williams had multi-hit games as well. Alex White got the win, allowing a single run over seven innings and striking out 10.
-In the bottom of the 9th with the game well in hand the Heels gave up a solo home run to Pete Frates, his first of the season. Frates eventually came to be a national hero for his courageous fight against ALS and pioneered the 'Ice Bucket Challenge,' which raised millions to fight that terrible disease before passing away last December. That's one home run I'm glad we gave up.
-The most memorable thing about the trip to Boston for a trio of Heels- Reid Fronk, Kyle Shelton, and Tyson Lusk- is that they ran into Tom Brady at the team hotel. He was very nice to them and gladly signed a baseball for Coach Chad Holbrook's pediatric cancer foundation to auction off.
- A final quick hit from April 7, 2015 when the Heels beat Coastal Carolina 9-3. Adam Pate was the star that day with a home run, a double, and a single. Tyler Ramirez also had three hits and drove in a pair of runs, Korey Dunbar had a pair of hits, Logan Warmoth drove in a pair of runs, and Zack Gahagan had an RBI double. Spencer Trayner got the win and Trevor Kelley and Trent Thornton closed out the game by combining for 5 scoreless innings where they only allowed 2 hits.
