UNC baseball strikes late, defeats Notre Dame to reach ACC Tournament championship game
After blasting its way to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament semifinals, North Carolina baseball had to rely on more methodical means of advancing Saturday afternoon.
Timely late hits from Mac Horvath, Danny Serretti and Johnny Castagnozzi helped push the Tar Heels past Notre Dame 7-2 at Truist Field in Charlotte, and into the championship game.
UNC broke through a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning. With two outs and the bases loaded, Horvath’s run-scoring single and Serretti’s two-run double moved North Carolina ahead 5-2. Castagnozzi’s two-out bloop single drove in two more insurance runs in the top of the ninth.
Davis Palermo pitched the final two innings for his fifth save of the season, as surging UNC secured its 14th victory across the last 16 games.
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The eighth-seeded Tar Heels (37-19) have significantly improved their NCAA Tournament résumé since a low point in late April, and will meet either No. 10 seed NC State or No. 11 seed Pittsburgh in the ACC final at noon Sunday (ESPN2). Saturday marked the third time in five years that North Carolina reached the semifinals (2017, 2019, 2022) under the tournament’s current format.
Mikey Madej finished 4-for-4 against fourth-seeded Notre Dame (35-14). He served a lead-off single up the middle to start the top of the eighth, and UNC went on to load the bases.
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Earlier, North Carolina tied it at 2-2 in the top of the sixth, when a ball off the end of Hunter Stokley’s bat dropped in left field and bounced off the heel of the outfield grass into the corner, allowing Madej to score from first base.
Carter Putz yanked a full-count pitch from Tar Heels reliever Gage Gillian for a solo homer in the bottom of the fifth, and the Fighting Irish led 2-1, the first deficit UNC had faced during the course of the tournament. North Carolina and Notre Dame went 2-0 in the pool play portion to advance to the semifinals.
Colby Wilkerson’s run-scoring grounder for an out put the Tar Heels ahead 1-0 in the second inning. Jack Brannigan, from the bottom of the Irish’s lineup, golfed a no-doubter home run way out to left field, a blast that traveled 419 feet and left Brannigan’s bat at 104 mph. That tied the score 1-1 in the bottom of the third.
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Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC baseball defeats Notre Dame to reach 2022 ACC Tournament final
