Junior left-hander Kent Emanuel opened the Diamond Heels season in impressive fashion Friday afternoon as he shut out Seton Hall in a 1-0 North Carolina win.<\/p>\n
Emanuel surrendered just four hits on the afternoon as he became the first Tar Heel since 1967 to throw a season-opening shutout. The Woodstock, Ga., native struck out five batters and did not issue a walk in leading the top-ranked Tar Heels to the 1-0 win.<\/p>\n
The Tar Heels were able to scratch out a run against Seton Hall right-hander Jon Prosinski in the sixth inning, the only blemish on the senior’s final line.<\/p>\n
Carolina had been held in check the first time through the lineup before freshman Skye Bolt opened the bottom of the sixth with a leadoff single through the right side.<\/p>\n
Junior Brian Holberton battled Prosinski through a good at bat before drawing a walk and making Bolt the first player on either team to reach second base on the day. Junior catcher Matt Roberts moved the pair into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt and flipped the lineup over for Chaz Frank.<\/p>\n
Frank fell behind 1-2 in the count before hitting a shallow fly to center field. Bolt tagged up from third and slid in just under the throw from center fielder Zack Granite.<\/p>\n
The Pirates threatened against Emanuel in the final two frames but the southpaw was able to escape danger. Scott Kalamar opened the eighth with a single through the middle and moved into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt off the bat of Kyle Grimm.<\/p>\n
Emanuel was able to corral a comebacker for out number two before getting Dillon Hamlin swinging to end the frame.<\/p>\n
Another leadoff single opened the final frame, and a dropped throw on a sacrifice bunt attempt put two on with nobody out in the ninth for Seton Hall.<\/p>\n
A sacrifice bunt moved the go-ahead run into scoring position to put the pressure on the Tar Heels. Emanuel was able to strike out Giuseppe Papaccio looking for the second out of the inning.<\/p>\n
Sal Annunziata hit a high chopper back to the mound but Emanuel was able to make a leaping grab and a throw to first to seal the game away.<\/p>\n
Bolt finished his collegiate debut with a pair of singles, while Parks Jordan and Michael Russell each added a single.<\/p>\n
The Tar Heels and Pirates are set to square off again on Saturday with first pitch tentatively scheduled for 2 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Junior left-hander Kent Emanuel opened the Diamond Heels season in impressive fashion Friday afternoon as he shut out Seton Hall in a 1-0 North Carolina…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5038,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036\/revisions\/5038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}