The No. 19 Virginia baseball team (18-5, 4-2 ACC) snapped their three-game losing skid with a 6-2 victory in the finale of a three-game series against visiting North Carolina (16-5, 2-1 ACC).
The win came on the backs of solid pitching and hitting from senior Joe Koshansky and sophomore Ryan Zimmerman. Koshanksy was 2-5 at the plate with four RBIs and threw eight scoreless innings on the mound. Zimmerman went three for five and scored two runs. The victory occurred on the heels of two defeats in which North Carolina scored the winning runs in the 11th and ninth innings of games one and two.
Virginia got off to a quick lead in the bottom of first when Koshansky hit a two-out RBI double to left center to score Zimmerman, who had singled. The Cavaliers then loaded the bases after a walk and a hit-by-pitch, but catcher Scott Headd hit into a fielder's choice to end the rally.
Neither team crossed home plate after the first until Virginia got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fifth. Matt Street reached first after he was hit by a pitch and Zimmerman executed a hit-and-run to perfection. Zimmerman hit the ball exactly where the Carolina shortstop would have been, had he not been moving to second to cover Street's steal attempt, and Street was able to advance to third. Koshansky then knocked an RBI groundout to score Street.
"We're a real aggressive team, and that also helps confidence," Zimmerman said. "If we're not hitting and running, that's a double play."
The Cavaliers got some insurance runs in the seventh when shortstop Mark Reynolds led off with a home run over the right field wall to extend Virginia's lead to 3-0. Zimmerman then doubled, setting up Koshansky, who smacked his ninth home run of the year to make it a 5-0 ballgame. With two outs in the inning, catcher Scott Headd doubled inside the third-base line and freshman Tim Henry dropped an RBI single into leftfield. Headd just beat the throw to the plate to add on another run.
Koshansky allowed just three hits and tossed five strikeouts for his team-leading fourth win of the season.
"We needed people to step up today," Koshansky said. "I just wanted to go out there and try to give us a little energy and try to do what I could to get us over this hump."
The Tar Heels rallied in the ninth when Sammy Hewitt clocked a two-run home run off junior Josh Myers, but 6-2 was as close as they would get.
In game one, Virginia lost 5-3 in the 11th inning after coming back from a 3-0 deficit with three runs in the bottom of the fifth. Reynolds hit an RBI single and scored later in the inning after two Carolina errors to tie the game at three. The Cavaliers received a strong performance from starter Andrew Dobies, who went seven innings and allowed three runs on seven hits with a career-high 10 strikeouts. Freshman Casey Lambert picked up his first loss of the season (2-1) after allowing the two runs in the 11th when Ross Cook hit a two-run RBI single.
In the second game, the Cavaliers came back from behind to tie the game three times but were unable to answer when Carolina junior Chris Iannetta blasted a three-run home run over the leftfield scoreboard and into neighboring Klöckner Stadium. The shot propelled the Tar Hells to an 8-4 lead that proved to be the final score of the day.
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