Four first-inning home runs lead UNC in ACC Baseball Championship rout of Pitt
All season long, the North Carolina Tar Heels’ baseball team has been defined by its strong hitting ability.
UNC entered its first ACC Baseball Championship clash – Thursday afternoon against Pitt – with a .310 team batting average that ranks 24th in Division I. Seven Diamond Heels are mashing .300, with Georgia transfer Parks Harber owning a team-best .358.
North Carolina also hits for power, as star center fielder Vance Honeycutt is one of five players with double-digit home runs (team-high 22), while five hitters have a minimum 50 RBIs.
That power was on display in full force during Thursday’s ACC Championship opener against Pitt, as Harber, Anthony Donofrio, Casey Cook and Alberto Osuna all mashed first-inning home runs en route to a 12-2 victory.
After blowing the game open early, UNC added a fifth run on Donofrio’s fourth-inning single. The Panthers closed their deficit to 5-2 in the bottom of the fourth, only for Cook to mash a 2-run homer in the sixth.
The Diamond Heels then added on to their lead with an Osuna groundout (sixth) and a Jackson Van De Brake single (ninth inning), capping their scoring later in the ninth on Cook’s 3-run bomb.
North Carolina also got a rockstar outing from freshman ace Jason DeCaro on the mound, as he pitched seven innings of 2-run, 5-hit baseball with six strikeouts. Connor Bovair and Kyle Percival finished the game and allowed just two hits.
UNC next lines up with Wake Forest on Friday, May 24 at 7 p.m. ET for a trip to the ACC Semifinals. The Demon Deacons, whom the Diamond Heels swept in Winston-Salem late March, dominated Pitt 8-1 on Wednesday.
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