June 20, 2011

CWS Scores & Schedule

Emanuel, Tar Heels Tame Texas

By Jimmy Jones

Special to CollegeBaseballInsider.com

(photos by Jimmy Jones)

OMAHA, Neb. – North Carolina’s Kent Emanuel (right) turned in a brilliant complete-game, four-hit shutout over Texas and the Tar Heels lived to fight another day with a 3-0 win Monday afternoon at the College World Series.
 

“Sensational performance, I don’t think you see too many of those out here,” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “I am not too surprised to see Kent go out there and pitch the way he did. It was typical of the way that we have won games this year.

“We had good pitching, solid defense and just enough hitting to get the win.”

While Emanuel (9-1) stymied the Longhorns, catcher Jacob Stallings and Ben Bunting supplied the offense, combining to drive in all three of their squad’s runs.
  
Stallings, the son of Vanderbilt basketball coach Kevin Stallings, drove in two runs in the top of the third off Cole Green (8-4) to give North Carolina (51-15) the lead before Emanuel and Texas relievers Hoby Milner and Kendal Carrillo traded zeroes over the next five innings.
 
Bunting (4 for 5) (left) delivered an RBI triple just over the diving attempt of right fielder Mark Payton to score pinch-runner Jeff Bouton in the ninth for a three-run advantage that kept momentum firmly in the UNC dugout with three outs to play.
 
“That was a huge swing of the bat,” Fox said. “They were playing in a little bit with two strikes and Ben was able to get it over the outfielder to score a huge insurance run. Our dugout relaxed a little bit after that hit.”
 
It was Bunting’s fourth hit of the game out of the 2-hole in the lineup – Fox bumped the hottest Tar Heels hitter up in the lineup and dropped Levi Michael. Bunting now has 11 hits in his past 18 at-bats.
 
“Right now, I am just very fortunate to be seeing the ball very well and I am just trying to hit the first strike I see hard somewhere,” Bunting said. “So far, I am just fortunate enough to be finding some holes.”
 
Texas, which had nine players taken in the MLB draft and has 77 Conference Championships in its trophy case, became the first team eliminated from the tournament after a 41-19 season.
 
“First of all, you never want to be the first team up to the podium in the first two days of the series,” Texas coach Augie Garrido said. “I thought that it was a heck of well-pitched game by both teams, but we were just unable to get a key hit here and there.
 
“You just have to give a hat off to North Carolina. They made a few more plays than we did today.”