A three-run home run from Colin Hynek and clutch pitching from Caden Glauber and Walker McDuffie helped the Diamond Heels beat East Carolina 7-5 at Boshamer Stadium Saturday in the NCAA Regionals.
“What a game. Just awesome,” head coach Scott Forbes said afterward. “Obviously, it’s more awesome when you come out on top.”
Hynek’s home run tied the game in the top of the fourth inning (UNC was playing as the visiting team) after the Pirates had taken an early 3-0 lead against starter Jason DeCaro. The big hit came on the next pitch after Forbes had called a rare offensive timeout from his spot at third base, counseling his catcher after Hynek had swung through strike one.
“He just told me to stay short, hit something in the gap, and that he believed in me, and that if he was betting, he was gonna bet on me,” Hynek remembered of the timeout.
“I got lucky,” said Forbes. “He took a great swing, but I wasn’t sure if it was gonna get out.”
“It’s part of why I came here, to be in moments like this,” Hynek said. “To be able to come through, that was pretty special, and something I’ll remember forever.”
“It was the swing of the game,” said Forbes. “I felt like after that, our guys settled in.”
Hynek was part of another rally in the sixth, drawing a hit by pitch which led to three more runs for Carolina and a 7-3 lead. UNC’s bottom three hitters of Tyler Howe, Hynek and Carter French combined to score four of the team’s seven runs, with Howe and Hynek each finishing with multiple hits.
Glauber tossed 4.1 innings in relief of DeCaro, who didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. His only blemish came in the seventh, when the Pirates cut a four-run deficit in half and closed to within 7-5. Glauber yielded to McDuffie in the ninth, who worked around a one-out single and slammed the door on the UNC win.
“I give credit to Coach [Bryant] Gaines,” Forbes said. “I was in the middle in the ninth. I needed to be pushed over, because I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. And when the pitching coach feels very strongly that we need to go to McDuffie, we did.”
As Forbes remembered, his staff also played a key role in constructing the lineup for Saturday’s game. A late tweak led to UNC starting the 7-8-9 trio of Howe, Hynek and French and provided the offensive spark the team needed.
“I have the best coaching staff in the country,” Forbes said. “I had the lineup written out today, and Coach [Jackson] came down to my office and said, ‘I think you need to stagger and go left-right-left-right-left-right. And we did.”
Hynek and French both scored in UNC’s three-run rally in the sixth after a pair of doubles from Jake Schaffner and Gavin Gallaher. That duo combined for three doubles, UNC’s only extra-base hits of the day aside from Hynek’s home run.
Saturday’s game was the first postseason meeting between UNC and East Carolina since 2012 and ninth all time, with UNC leading the postseason series 8-1. The Diamond Heels will be back in action Sunday at 5 p.m., when they face the winner of ECU and VCU, who will play at 12 p.m. UNC can advance to the Super Regional round for the third consecutive season with a win Sunday.
Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Chance Bragg
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