John Leonard was only supposed to go three innings against North Carolina yesterday, but he was throwing so well.
Those three innings came and went and he had only given up two runs (one earned) on three hits and an error.
Leonard sat the Tar Heels down in order in the fourth and told head coach Paul Keyes to leave him in.
Goundout. Pop up. Groundout. On to the fifth.
Leave him in longer.
No runs. One hit. No errors.
By the time Leonard was done, he had thrown 6.1 innings against the No. 12 team in the country according to Baseball America and handed the ball over to Cody Eppley with the game tied at 2.
That was as good as it got.
Tar Heels pinch hitter Jay Cox sent a double down the right field line to score centerfielder Chase Younts and give UNC a 3-2 lead, which they would hold onto for the rest of the game.
Andy Gale through six innings for UNC, giving up two earned runs eight hits and a walk while striking out seven.
Jonathan Hovis picked up the win for striking out three batters in two innings of relief.
The Rams jumped on the Tar Heels early when freshman shortstop Sergio Miranda scored on an RBI single by sophomore second baseman Scott Sizemore.
UNC answered in the second inning after capitalizing on a leadoff walk by Leonard and a throwing error by Miranda. Younts and first baseman Matt Spencer had run-scoring singles to put the Tar Heels up 2-1.
The Rams tied the game in the fifth inning when third baseman Barrett Ripley and left fielder Kwan Evans lead off the inning with back to back singles. Miranda sent a 2-1 pitch to left field allowing Ripley to score the game-tying run.
Eppley threw 0.2 innings for the Rams, allowing one run, and Brett Walker added a scoreless eighth inning.
While UNC improved to 30-8-1, maybe VCU(20-10), which had been mentioned with the Tar Heels among other teams in Baseball America’s projected NCAA tournament field, proved it belonged.