Diamond Heels Outlast Duke In 14-Inning Marathon To Claim Series

Saturday, April 5

Chapel Hill

2 PM

North Carolina

24-8, 0

Duke

21-12, 0

Duke

North Carolina

Diamond Heels Outlast Duke In 14-Inning Marathon To Claim Series

April 6, 2025 | Baseball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: William Soule

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – North Carolina battled through an extra-innings slugfest with Duke to take an 8-7 victory on Saturday afternoon in walk-off fashion.

The Tar Heels (24-8, 8-7 ACC) claimed their sixth straight series win over their bitter rivals from Durham thanks to an Alex Madera chopped single in the bottom of the 14^th inning that scored Tyson Bass. Saturday's contest finished tied for the longest game in the series' history and the 11^th time the two programs had gone to extras.

The last extra innings game against Duke was May 19, 2017, a 3-2 win in the 10^thfor Carolina. The only other affair that made it to the 14^th was the first one that went to extras in April of 1964.

With the game tied and the offense still looking for the winning run, the Diamond Heels had to rely on their deep arsenal of arms. Seven pitchers threw for Carolina and none more important than the four who kept Duke off the board in the final frames.

True freshman Camron Seagraves entered in a sticky situation in the ninth and kept the Blue Devils from taking the lead. He then sat down six straight in the next two innings to keep the game alive.

He was backed up by Princeton transfer Tom Chmielewski, Liberty transfer Cale Bolton, and sophomore Folger Boaz who all combined to pitch a shutout across the final 3.0 innings while only giving up two hits and stranding seven Duke men in the process.

The moment could not have been bigger and each rose to the occasion. It was easily the biggest performance in the Carolina blue for both Chmielewski and Bolton, who had a total of five appearances between them coming into the game.

And what a week for Boaz, who on Tuesday started against Gardner-Webb in the Tar Heels' first no-hitter since 1999 and then finished the game against Duke by getting a huge groundout with the bases loaded in the lone batter he faced. Both Boaz and Chmielewski missed the majority of last season due to injury.

Extra innings may have been defined by the arms, but the bats made the noise in regulation.

Bouncing back from a slow first two games of the series, catcher Luke Stevenson got all of his frustration out on fastball on the outside part of the plate that he sent 362 feet over the left field fence. It was his third opposite field blast of the season, and it gave Carolina a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Duke took a one-run lead in the fourth, but Carolina swung the pendulum back in their favor in the sixth. Hunter Stokley led off with a double down the right field line before Alex Madera's single tied the game. A passed ball and a wild pitch back-to-back move around and subsequently scored Perry Hargett to made the score 5-4 Heels.

The Heels got two more in the eighth highlighted by an RBI single from Jackson Van De Brake. The Carolina captain went four-for-six on the day with a run and an RBI, it is the most hits in a single game in his career.

The veteran Van De Brake was phenomenal all weekend. He racked up a .538 batting average with seven hits, five RBIs, and 12 total bases.

Carolina will look to ride this momentum into yet another big week ahead, as they prepare to go on the road to face Elon on Tuesday night before a weekend series against Wake Forest in Boshamer Stadium.