Baseball Falls To #11 UNC, 3-1

Saturday, March 14

Pittsburgh, Pa.

5:00 PM

Pitt

7-9, 2-3

North Carolina

12-6, 3-2

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
North Carolina	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	3	7	0
Pitt	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	6	0

3/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

March 14, 2015

Box Score | Season Stats

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PITTSBURGH - A day after Pitt (7-9, 2-3 ACC) and North Carolina (12-6, 3-2 ACC) combined to score 21 runs and pound out 24 hits, both were at a premium on Saturday night as the No. 11 Tar Heels defeated Pitt 3-1 on March 14 at Charles L. Cost Field.

Junior Aaron Sandefur (1-2) had his third consecutive strong Saturday start, but was outdueled by UNC rookie J.B. Bukauskas (3-1) as both pitched into the sixth inning.

Sandefur, who was pulled after 5.1 innings, allowed two runs (one earned) on just four hits. He entered the fifth inning having surrendered only one hit, while retiring the last nine batters he faced, but three hard-hit singles eventually led to the Tar Heels' go-ahead run in the sixth. It was third start in a row that he let up two runs or less.

Bukauskas (3-1) went 6.0 innings and gave up just one run to the Panthers on four hits, while striking out six.

Redshirt sophomore Frank Maldonado powered the Panthers on offense with two hits, including the lone run batted in. He's on a team-best nine game hitting streak this season and has reached base in all 14 games that he has had a plate appearance in.

Junior Aaron Schnurbusch was the other Pitt player with two hits, doubling in the fourth and singling in the ninth.

After an old fashioned `strike `em out, throw `em out' double play to end the top of the second inning, Pitt broke through into the scoring column to take a 1-0 lead, but also left some potential runs on the bases.

Junior Alex Kowalczyk, who made the pin-point throw to catch the would-be stealer moments earlier, led off the frame with a single the opposite way. Following a groundout, a wild pitch and a walk, Pitt had runners on the corners for Maldonado, who pushed a hit the other way between first and second and brought Kowalczyk in for the first run of the game. Looking to get into a more favorable scoring position, senior Jordan Frabasilio attempted to advance to third on a fly out by senior Eric Hess, but was thrown out by a wide margin as the inning came to a close.

In the third, UNC evened the score without any hits. Elijah Sutherland drew a leadoff walk and made his way around the base paths on a sacrifice bunt, a ground out and scored on a passed ball.

Pitt left the go ahead run 90 feet away after a two-out double by Schnurbusch in the fourth, followed by a wild pitch. Frabasilio then hit a high, slow chopper, but UNC third baseman Alex Raburn came up firing and beat Frabasilio by a step to keep the run off the boar.

Rolling through the previous two innings, Sandefur was chased in the fifth after three hard-hit singles through the left side loaded the bases for the Tar Heels, prompting the Panthers to turn to their bullpen.

Senior lefty Nick Parnell got his only batter out on a fly ball to right, but it was deep enough to score the runner from third and give UNC a 2-1 lead. With runners on the corners, freshman Ryan Campbell came in, and in one pitch ended the inning with a fly ball out.

The Panthers had a number of opportunities over the next two innings, stranding a total of three base runners between the sixth and seventh frames. In the sixth it was a leadoff single by redshirt sophomore Jacob Wright and one-out walk to sophomore Nick Yarnall that had Pitt in business. But Bukauskas buckled down to retire the next two batters.

Pickoffs did both teams in and squandered chances at runs in the bottom of the seventh and top of the eighth. Maldonado singled with one out in the home half of the seventh and was caught too far off the base by reliever Spencer Trayner. Two pitches later, he got Hess ground out and end the inning. The same thing happened to the Tar Heels in the eighth after Hobie Harris, who pitched a perfect seventh, walked Landon Lassiter with one out then picked him off and one pitch later recorded his third strikeout of the evening.

Making his seventh straight appearance for UNC, Trevor Kelley made quick work of Pitt in the eighth to bring the UNC bats back up to the plate. The Tar Heels helped Kelley out by giving him an insurance run when Skye Bolt cleared the fence in right over Maldonado's glove by a few inches for his second homer in as many days.

Harris ran into some more trouble when back-to-back singles and a wild pitch on a strike three left two runners in scoring position. However, a foul fly by the next batter ended the inning. Overall, Harris pitched rather effectively, giving up one run on three hits - all in the ninth - in 3.0 innings.

Needing to score at least two runs in the bottom of the ninth, Schnurbusch did his part with a two-out single the other way to keep the inning alive. With Pitt's home run leader Frabasilio at bat serving as the tying run, Kelley struck him out to earn the two-inning save.

Bolt finished with both RBIs for the Tar Heels while Brian Miller was the only two-hit player on the day.

The rubber match is set for Sunday, March 15 at 12 p.m.