Friday, the sixth-ranked, 3-0, UNC baseball team will take its talents to warm Orlando, Florida for a top ten showdown with the fourth-ranked UCLA Bruins (4-0), the national champions in 2013, just two seasons ago. The teams will begin a three game series that was moved from Chapel Hill to UCF’s Jay Bergman Stadium due to inclement weather.
Dominant pitching led the Tar Heels to a season-opening sweep of Seton Hall last weekend, and reliever Spencer Trayner says the entire staff has the same mentality right now.
“We’re so confident, we’re so confident, it’s a blast out there,” Trayner says, “Every guy that we’re gonna bring in is gonna be real good. If our starter doesn’t get us to the sixth or seventh, we have the depth to take care of that.”
Trayner earned the win for his 2.2 inning outing in relief of Trent Thornton last Friday, and will be one of many bullpen arms trusted to get the Tar Heels out of tough situations throughout the season.
It’s been the progress of the team’s sophomores though, that’s caught Coach Mike Fox’s attention the most.
Adrian Chacon will be crucial to the Heels’ success this season. (UNC Athletics)
“I think you see the improvement in some of our sophomores, and I’ve said before I think that’s the key to improvement of your team from one year to the next, especially when your team needs to improve, is do your freshman get better as sophomores?” Fox says,”And I think you can look at Adrian (Chacon) and Joe Dudek in particular.”
Dudek homered in the first game against Seton Hall and drove in four runs overall for the series, leading UNC in slugging percentage so far at .778. Chacon is batting a clean .600 on the season and has reached base in seven of his 11 plate appearances, knocking in two runs in the process.
Senior starter Benton Moss says he sees a bright future for this particular team, adding an interesting statistic that is sure to make Tar Heel fans smile.
“I’m 110 percent confident with this lineup right now. I was joking with somebody the other day, and was like, man, I gave up like one home run all spring last year, and in my last two pre-season starts I gave up three,” Moss says with a laugh.
Coming off a strong five-inning, nine-strikeout performance in Game 1 of last Saturday’s doubleheader, it’s Moss that will take the bump to open the series on Friday against Bruin right-hander James Kapreielian (1-0, 1.50 ERA) at 2 PM. He’ll take on a high-powered UCLA offense that has homered eight times already this year, led by three from senior infielder Chris Keck.
Carolina holds the all-time series lead between the two distinguished programs, 5-2.
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