University of North Carolina Athletics
Levi Michael homered in the 2010 Va. Tech game
Photo by: Joe Bray
This Day In Tar Heel Baseball History: May 22
May 22, 2020 | Baseball
CHAPEL HILLÂ - North Carolina looks at "On This Day in Tar Heel History", as Tom Jensen shares his memories as an avid Tar Heel fan and regular at Boshamer Stadium.Â
May 22
For today's version of 'This Day in Recent Carolina Baseball History' we go back to 2015 and 2019 for a win in what seemed at the time like an NCAA Tournament play in game, and a dramatic win that set off an incredible run to an ACC title. Plus a quick hit from 2010.
On May 22, 2015 the Heels faced off against Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Both teams were on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament- even though UNC was way ahead of the Tigers in the RPI and had a better record- so it felt pretty logical that with this head to head game at the end of the season whoever won it would get to play in June and whoever lost it would go home.
JB Bukauskas was on the hill for the Heels and he started his day out in dominant fashion. He threw a 1-2-3 1st, he threw a 1-2-3 2nd, striking out the side, and he threw a 1-2-3 3rd. The Tigers didn't have anyone reach base their first time through the order.
In the bottom of the third Adam Pate reached on an error with 2 outs. Tyler Ramirez singled on the next pitch. And in what turned out to be the final game of his Tar Heel career Skye Bolt delivered one of the biggest hits of his time in Carolina Blue, going deep to right field to give the Heels a 3-0 lead.
Clemson finally got some base runners in the 4th but JB threw another scoreless inning with a pair of strikeouts.Â
In the bottom of the 4th the offense came back for more. Logan Warmoth walked and stole 2nd and with 2 out Brian Miller drew a walk of his own. Adam Pate singled to left to score Logan on the first pitch he saw and make it 4-0. Adam stole second and then Tyler Ramirez drew a walk to load the bases. Skye Bolt followed that up with a walk of his own to bring in Brian, his 4th RBI of the day, and give the Heels a 5-0 lead.
JB threw a 1-2-3 5th and got the first two outs in the 6th before giving up a couple of runs and  leaving the game. He went 5.2 innings and struck out 7 in the final start of his freshman year, earning the win.Â
In the bottom of the 6th the Heels got one of the runs back. With 2 outs Tyler Ramirez singled and stole 2nd, went to 3rd on an error on a pickoff attempt, and came home on another error to give the Heels a 6-2 lead.
Who else but Trevor Kelley came on in place of JB. Trevor had an incredible senior year that was especially marked by pitching more or less every day. He appeared in 41 out of 58 games, and these weren't short relief appearances either- he threw 77.2 innings, nearly 2 a game, across all his outings. He struck out 71 and walked only 20 and ended up with a 2.55 ERA.Â
His career had quite an incredible progression from throwing only 1.2 innings his freshman year and there have been few guys whose making it to the majors as he did last summer has thrilled me so much, knowing the path he followed to get there.
Clemson got runners to 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs in the 7th but Trevor got a strikeout to leave them there. Clemson did get one back in the 8th to cut their deficit to 6-3 but with a couple runners still on base Trevor again got a strikeout to strand them.
After Trevor successfully pitched himself out of trouble in the 7th and 8th there wasn't much drama left in the 9th. He retired the Tigers 1-2-3 with a couple of fly outs and a ground out for a 6-3 win. It was only appropriate he was on the mound to end the season- he got his 5th save of the year for 3.1 innings where he allowed just one run.
Tyler Ramirez had 2 hits and scored 2 runs. Skye Bolt had a home run and drove in 4, Joe Dudek doubled, and Adam Pate singled and drove in and scored a run.
The Heels came into the 2019 ACC Tournament reeling. They went into the exam break in good position to host a regional but then they got blown out by ECU at home, lost a series at Pitt, and got embarrassed by a total score of 22-2 in the last two games of the State series at the Bosh. After all that there was no way this team was hosting in June- unless they could somehow miraculously win the ACC Tournament.Â
And on May 22, 2019 they started the road to doing just that. Tyler Baum was on the bump for the Heels and he had it going. He threw a scoreless 1st and a scoreless 2nd, then followed those up with a 1-2-3 3rd and a 1-2-3 4th.
In the bottom of the 4th Aaron Sabato worked a full count and then connected for a 1 out double. After an out Ike Freeman came up feeling aggressive and singled to right on the first pitch he saw, bringing Aaron around to give the Heels a 1-0 lead.
Tyler kept going strong with a 1-2-3 5th and a scoreless 6th. In the bottom of the 6th Michael Busch hit a leadoff triple and with 1 out Danny Serretti doubled to right to extend the lead to 2-0.
Virginia got a run in the 7th and another in the 8th to tie the game and Joey Lancellotti came in on behalf of Tyler Baum. It had nevertheless been an excellent start for Tyler in a must win game- 7.1 innings, 6 strikeouts, only 5 hits allowed.
In the 9th Virginia loaded the bases with 1 out and it looked like the recent disappointments for the Heels were probably going to continue with getting eliminated from ACC Tournament contention in their first game of the event. But Joey dug deep and came through with a strikeout to leave all the runners where they were and then got a groundout to end the inning.Â
In the bottom of the 10th Aaron Sabato drew a 4 pitch walk with one out, then moved to 2nd on a wild pitch. So the Hoos decided they would just intentionally walk Danny Serretti to set up a potential double play.Â
That kind of strategy is all fine and good if you trust your pitcher's ability to throw strikes. But it can backfire on you if you can't. Ike Freeman was up next and he drew a quick walk of his own on 5 pitches to load the bases.
That brought up Caleb Roberts. He fell behind 0-1...and then he got hit by a pitch to give the Heels a 3-2 victory. It gave the Heels a much needed win and kept their hosting hopes at least faintly alive.
Joey Lancellotti got his 5th win of the season for 2.2 scoreless innings of work. Danny Serretti had a pair of doubles, driving in a run, and Ike Freeman also had 2 hits for the Heels with an RBI. Michael Busch (a triple and a run), Aaron Sabato (a double and a run), Dallas Tessar (a double), and Dylan Harris (a single) had the rest of the hits for the Heels.
And a quick hit from 2010:
-The Heels finished the regular season with a 10-2 win over Virginia Tech to complete the series sweep and make one last argument for an NCAA Tournament bid (which they would end up receiving despite not getting to play in the ACC Tournament.)Â
It was Senior Day and both Ryan Graepel (with a double, 2 RBI, and a run) and Mike Cavasinni (with a run) had multiple hits in their last game at the Bosh. Levi Michael (including a home run, 3 RBI, and 2 runs), Coach Jesse Wierzbicki (including a double and a run), Brian Goodwin (including 2 RBI and a run), and Jacob Stallings made it 6 Heels with multi hit games.Â
Patrick Johnson got the win for 7 solid innings where he allowed only 2 runs and Jimmy Messer threw 2 scoreless innings to close it out. The Heels ended ACC play 14-16 after starting out 7-13 by winning 7 of their last 10 conference games.Â
May 22
For today's version of 'This Day in Recent Carolina Baseball History' we go back to 2015 and 2019 for a win in what seemed at the time like an NCAA Tournament play in game, and a dramatic win that set off an incredible run to an ACC title. Plus a quick hit from 2010.
On May 22, 2015 the Heels faced off against Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Both teams were on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament- even though UNC was way ahead of the Tigers in the RPI and had a better record- so it felt pretty logical that with this head to head game at the end of the season whoever won it would get to play in June and whoever lost it would go home.
JB Bukauskas was on the hill for the Heels and he started his day out in dominant fashion. He threw a 1-2-3 1st, he threw a 1-2-3 2nd, striking out the side, and he threw a 1-2-3 3rd. The Tigers didn't have anyone reach base their first time through the order.
In the bottom of the third Adam Pate reached on an error with 2 outs. Tyler Ramirez singled on the next pitch. And in what turned out to be the final game of his Tar Heel career Skye Bolt delivered one of the biggest hits of his time in Carolina Blue, going deep to right field to give the Heels a 3-0 lead.
Clemson finally got some base runners in the 4th but JB threw another scoreless inning with a pair of strikeouts.Â
In the bottom of the 4th the offense came back for more. Logan Warmoth walked and stole 2nd and with 2 out Brian Miller drew a walk of his own. Adam Pate singled to left to score Logan on the first pitch he saw and make it 4-0. Adam stole second and then Tyler Ramirez drew a walk to load the bases. Skye Bolt followed that up with a walk of his own to bring in Brian, his 4th RBI of the day, and give the Heels a 5-0 lead.
JB threw a 1-2-3 5th and got the first two outs in the 6th before giving up a couple of runs and  leaving the game. He went 5.2 innings and struck out 7 in the final start of his freshman year, earning the win.Â
In the bottom of the 6th the Heels got one of the runs back. With 2 outs Tyler Ramirez singled and stole 2nd, went to 3rd on an error on a pickoff attempt, and came home on another error to give the Heels a 6-2 lead.
Who else but Trevor Kelley came on in place of JB. Trevor had an incredible senior year that was especially marked by pitching more or less every day. He appeared in 41 out of 58 games, and these weren't short relief appearances either- he threw 77.2 innings, nearly 2 a game, across all his outings. He struck out 71 and walked only 20 and ended up with a 2.55 ERA.Â
His career had quite an incredible progression from throwing only 1.2 innings his freshman year and there have been few guys whose making it to the majors as he did last summer has thrilled me so much, knowing the path he followed to get there.
Clemson got runners to 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs in the 7th but Trevor got a strikeout to leave them there. Clemson did get one back in the 8th to cut their deficit to 6-3 but with a couple runners still on base Trevor again got a strikeout to strand them.
After Trevor successfully pitched himself out of trouble in the 7th and 8th there wasn't much drama left in the 9th. He retired the Tigers 1-2-3 with a couple of fly outs and a ground out for a 6-3 win. It was only appropriate he was on the mound to end the season- he got his 5th save of the year for 3.1 innings where he allowed just one run.
Tyler Ramirez had 2 hits and scored 2 runs. Skye Bolt had a home run and drove in 4, Joe Dudek doubled, and Adam Pate singled and drove in and scored a run.
The Heels came into the 2019 ACC Tournament reeling. They went into the exam break in good position to host a regional but then they got blown out by ECU at home, lost a series at Pitt, and got embarrassed by a total score of 22-2 in the last two games of the State series at the Bosh. After all that there was no way this team was hosting in June- unless they could somehow miraculously win the ACC Tournament.Â
And on May 22, 2019 they started the road to doing just that. Tyler Baum was on the bump for the Heels and he had it going. He threw a scoreless 1st and a scoreless 2nd, then followed those up with a 1-2-3 3rd and a 1-2-3 4th.
In the bottom of the 4th Aaron Sabato worked a full count and then connected for a 1 out double. After an out Ike Freeman came up feeling aggressive and singled to right on the first pitch he saw, bringing Aaron around to give the Heels a 1-0 lead.
Tyler kept going strong with a 1-2-3 5th and a scoreless 6th. In the bottom of the 6th Michael Busch hit a leadoff triple and with 1 out Danny Serretti doubled to right to extend the lead to 2-0.
Virginia got a run in the 7th and another in the 8th to tie the game and Joey Lancellotti came in on behalf of Tyler Baum. It had nevertheless been an excellent start for Tyler in a must win game- 7.1 innings, 6 strikeouts, only 5 hits allowed.
In the 9th Virginia loaded the bases with 1 out and it looked like the recent disappointments for the Heels were probably going to continue with getting eliminated from ACC Tournament contention in their first game of the event. But Joey dug deep and came through with a strikeout to leave all the runners where they were and then got a groundout to end the inning.Â
In the bottom of the 10th Aaron Sabato drew a 4 pitch walk with one out, then moved to 2nd on a wild pitch. So the Hoos decided they would just intentionally walk Danny Serretti to set up a potential double play.Â
That kind of strategy is all fine and good if you trust your pitcher's ability to throw strikes. But it can backfire on you if you can't. Ike Freeman was up next and he drew a quick walk of his own on 5 pitches to load the bases.
That brought up Caleb Roberts. He fell behind 0-1...and then he got hit by a pitch to give the Heels a 3-2 victory. It gave the Heels a much needed win and kept their hosting hopes at least faintly alive.
Joey Lancellotti got his 5th win of the season for 2.2 scoreless innings of work. Danny Serretti had a pair of doubles, driving in a run, and Ike Freeman also had 2 hits for the Heels with an RBI. Michael Busch (a triple and a run), Aaron Sabato (a double and a run), Dallas Tessar (a double), and Dylan Harris (a single) had the rest of the hits for the Heels.
And a quick hit from 2010:
-The Heels finished the regular season with a 10-2 win over Virginia Tech to complete the series sweep and make one last argument for an NCAA Tournament bid (which they would end up receiving despite not getting to play in the ACC Tournament.)Â
It was Senior Day and both Ryan Graepel (with a double, 2 RBI, and a run) and Mike Cavasinni (with a run) had multiple hits in their last game at the Bosh. Levi Michael (including a home run, 3 RBI, and 2 runs), Coach Jesse Wierzbicki (including a double and a run), Brian Goodwin (including 2 RBI and a run), and Jacob Stallings made it 6 Heels with multi hit games.Â
Patrick Johnson got the win for 7 solid innings where he allowed only 2 runs and Jimmy Messer threw 2 scoreless innings to close it out. The Heels ended ACC play 14-16 after starting out 7-13 by winning 7 of their last 10 conference games.Â
Players Mentioned
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