On Sunday, Stanford baseball defeated No. 4 North Carolina 7-0 to take two out of three games of their weekend series. Stanford righty Joey Volchko (2-0) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role while North Carolina righty Aidan Haugh (2-1) was the losing pitcher for the Tarheels in a starting role. Volchko went 5.1 innings, striking out six batters while giving up three hits. Stanford catcher Charlie Saum and left fielder Ethan Hott each hit one home run while also having two RBIs apiece. Stanford improves to 12-3 overall and 2-1 in the ACC while North Carolina falls to 14-2 overall and 1-2 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at North Carolina-Sunday, March 9th
Through four innings, neither team scored keeping it at 0-0. Things changed in the top of the 5th inning as Charlie Saum hit a solo four-bagger to left field, making it a 1-0 lead for the Cardinal. With one out, Brady Reynolds was walked. Then, Temo Becerra reached first base thanks to an error while Reynolds advanced to third base. Ethan Hott then executed a sacrifice bunt to bring home Reynolds while Becerra advanced to second base. Charlie Bates then struck out looking to end the top of the inning. That made it a 2-0 lead for the Cardinal.
In the top of the 6th inning, Stanford added three more runs as Brandon Larson hit a double to left field with one out. With two outs, Charlie Saum was then walked after which Jimmy Nati hit a single to right field to bring home Larson and advance Saum to third base. Brady Reynolds then singled to right field to bring home Saum and advance Nati to third base. Reynolds then was caught stealing to end the inning, but not before Nati stole home to get the third run of the inning. 5-0 lead for the Cardinal.
After getting the first out of the bottom of the 6th inning, Volchko gave up a triple and then walked a batter, ending his day. Aidan Keenan came in for relief and was able to keep the Tarheel line up at bay, keeping it a 5-0 game at the end of the 6th inning.
Stanford would add a run in the top of the 8th inning as Charlie Saum hit an RBI single to bring home Trevor Haskins. That made it 6-0. In the top of the 9th inning, Stanford added one more run to make it 7-0 as Ethan Hott hit a solo blast to left field. After Keenan pitched through the 8th inning, Toran O’Harran came in to pitch the bottom of the 9th inning for Stanford and didn’t give up a run, making it a 7-0 final score.
For Stanford, this is a massive win. They take two out of three games against a top-five team in the nation on the road in their first ACC series. It can’t get any bigger than that. The pitching was fantastic and the bats came alive. This is the kind of game that Stanford has been waiting to have after having to win some high scoring slugfests.
Of course, this weekend wasn’t perfect for Stanford. They got absolutely rocked 11-1 on Saturday as Christian Lim had a less than positive outing on the mound. The game actually ended in seven innings, so it really was as bad of a game as you can have. Stanford can’t ignore what happened on Saturday and act like everything is fine, but man does a win on Sunday make the flight home a happy one.
Up next for Stanford is a three-game home series against Duke. The first game will be on Friday at 6:05 PM PT.
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