Rough 5th inning sinks Syracuse, 5-1, against North Carolina

The entire North Carolina bench mobbed home plate during the fifth inning as pitcher Brittany Pickett was taking her celebratory lap around the bases. She hit a three-run dinger past the fence to round out an explosive inning for the Tar Heels.

Syracuse wouldn’t answer for the rest of the game.

The game ended in UNC’s (28-24, 15-7 Atlantic Coast) favor, 5-1, after its offense erupted in the fifth inning to secure the win over Syracuse (27-19, 8-12) on Friday afternoon at Skytop Field. The explosive inning capped off one of SU pitcher Alexa Romero’s worst performances in the circle this season.

“They executed things, they used their small ball, they used their speed,” SU head coach Mike Bosch said. “Sometimes it’s not completely all what we do but the opponent does something well in the inning and they took advantage.”

The Orange entered the top of the fifth with a lead after Bryce Holmgren scored in the fourth. After four batters in the top of the fifth, UNC tied SU.

Pinch runner Hailey Cole was on third when Leah Murray reached first on a fielder’s choice. Cole ran home for UNC’s first run of the game. Left fielder Destiny DeBerry replaced Cole on third and Murray stole second to put two runners in scoring position.

The next batter, Kiani Ramsey, reached first after Gabby Teran dropped a fly ball and DeBerry scored. Teran threw home to keep the runner who had just reached third from scoring and Ramsey was able to take that opportunity to get to second.

Then Pickett hit one over the fence for three runs and sent Syracuse into a hole it couldn’t climb out of.

“She’s just a great power hitter,” SU pitcher Alexa Romero said. “…I tried spinning it and she just got ahold of it. It was a good hit on her end.”

During the top of the fifth, before Romero let up the home run, the infield joined in the circle. Romero said they met to help her “refocus and regenerate.” A few of the assistant coaches also approached the circle and started looking at Romero’s left hand – the hand she pitches with. According to Bosch, Romero developed a blister on her finger as a result of pitching repetitively.

Romero struck out three batters in the four and 2/3 innings she pitched. It was her lowest strikeout total this season when she pitched two or more innings. The five runs she let up were tied for her second highest season total.

“Almost everything was working,” Romero said. “They just, you know, hit me early and they got some bloopy little hits.”

Romero was pulled after Pickett’s home run in favor of freshman Miranda Hearn. Hearn didn’t allowed any runs off the two hits batters got off her.

Overall, UNC did better than Syracuse in all offensive categories. UNC had six hits to SU’s three and left two fewer runners on base than the Orange.

“We know that UNC is a fast team,” Holmgren said, “and I think that today we got to see how fast and so they took advantage of some extra base situations and kind of put the pressure on us.”