After coasting through Opening Weekend against Wagner, the UNC baseball team needed a challenge to test how good of a team it was.
North Carolina got that test on Tuesday afternoon against a pesky Elon squad, which was looking for a massive upset.
Even with a Vance Honeycutt grand slam, a trio of run-scoring singles and a Pheonix error, it was Diamond Heels reliever Dalton Pence who closed the door on a tight, 8-7 UNC victory.
Elon (1-3) knocked North Carolina reliever Aidan Haugh for two runs in the eighth, closing its deficit to what ended up being the final score. The Diamond Heels went to starter/reliever Connor Bovair to clean up the mess – he delivered with an 11-pitch, 1-hit scoreless eighth.
Pence came in to face the final two Phoenix batters and looked every part of a reliable closer, retiring both hitters and helping UNC escape with a key victory.
Outside of North Carolina’s 10-3 win over Wagner on Opening Day, pitching has been inconsistent through four games. Elon jumped on UNC pitchers early, taking a 4-3 lead in the fourth inning after a home run and two singles.
After recording just two hits over the weekend, Honeycutt put the Diamond Heels ahead for good with his fifth-inning grand slam. North Carolina wasn’t finished at the plate, with Casey Cook’s seventh-inning single proving to be the eventual game-winner.
"How grand is that!" – Dave Nathanhttps://t.co/Obuxm3z8aH pic.twitter.com/beUs6G4oys
— Carolina Baseball (@DiamondHeels) February 20, 2024
UNC now sits 4-0 ahead of its weekend series against 11th-ranked East Carolina, with one game apiece in Chapel Hill, Greenville and neutral-site Fayetteville, NC. This will be a great, early-season measure to see how good the Diamond Heels truly are.
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