The Diamond Heels swept a three-game series with Georgia Tech at Boshamer Stadium during the weekend, extending their home winning streak to 23 games. It’s the second-longest home winning streak in program history.

Friday’s opening game turned out to be the closest, as UNC overcame an early 2-0 deficit with three runs in the third inning and two in the fourth. Alberto Osuna, Alex Madera and Casey Cook picked up RBIs in the rally, with Cook belting his sixth home run of the season to give UNC a 5-2 lead. Matthew Matthijs kept that lead intact until the ninth, twirling four shutout innings while allowing just one hit in relief of starter Folger Boaz. But Matt Poston and Dalton Pence ran into trouble in the top of the ninth, issuing four walks and allowing two runs to trim the deficit to 5-4. The Yellow Jackets had the bases loaded with two outs when Pence induced a pop up to finally end the game.

In Saturday’s second game, the Diamond Heels trailed 5-4 entering the bottom of the seventh, but scored seven runs over the next two innings to blow it open. Anthony Donofrio tied the game with an RBI single, and Parks Harber gave Carolina the lead with a double two batters later. Gavin Gallaher brought in the fourth run of the inning with a sacrifice fly. In the eighth, it was Harber doing even more damage with a three-run home run to right field. Poston had no trouble in the ninth this time, sitting down the Jackets in order to seal the 11-5 win.

Going for the sweep on Sunday, Carolina scored three runs in the bottom of the first thanks to RBIs from Osuna and Madera. Harber stayed hot with a home run in the fourth, and Luke Stevenson went back-to-back with the Georgia transfer to push UNC’s lead to 5-1. Vance Honeycutt crushed Carolina’s third homer of the game, a three-run shot, in the sixth. On the mound, starter Shea Sprague twirled an eight-inning masterpiece, allowing just five hits, two runs and striking out six. It was the first win of the season for the Elon transfer.

The Diamond Heels have now won five games in a row, are 21-4 overall and 7-2 in ACC play. Carolina has swept four of its first six series and two of its first three ACC series for the first time since 2013 — when the team reached the College World Series as the No. 1 overall seed. UNC can extend its home winning streak even further when it hosts North Carolina A&T on Tuesday night. After that, the Diamond Heels will hit the road for seven straight games away from Chapel Hill: three at No. 16 Wake Forest, three at No. 14 Virginia and one against South Carolina in Charlotte.

 

Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter

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