Birdball Weekend Recap - #4 North Carolina

Usually in our weekend recaps, I like to give a short summary of each game, highlighting individual performances and scoring plays, before concluding with an analysis of BC’s play, as a whole. This weekend, however, I’m going to take a different approach: no game recaps, all analysis. So, let’s begin:

The series against the fourth-ranked Tar Heels, believe it or not, started out well. Leading UNC 7-6 after four innings on Saturday, BC did something most teams in America haven’t been able to do: knock J.B. Bukauskas from a baseball game early. The Eagles tagged the likely All-American and first-round pick for seven runs, five of them earned, and chased him after only four innings, his shortest outing of the season. Then, UNC lead off the fifth with a home run to tie the game, and scored seven runs in the sixth to blow the game wide open, en route to a 17-7 opening victory in the weekend series. Sunday was no kinder to BC, as the Eagles fell 16-4 and 15-3 in the double header to give Carolina the series sweep.

First things first, sitting at 1-14 in the ACC at the midway point of the season, there is simply too much ground for the Eagles to make up in the last month and a half of the season to qualify for the conference tournament. Granted, stranger things have happened, but it looks unlikely that BC will be heading to Louisville in May. Now, let’s chat about this weekend. At some point, pride needs to become a factor with this team. I’m not implying that the team doesn’t care about winning. I know that they do. They want to go out every game and come away with a victory. Instead, what I’m saying is in games like the three this weekend, where the opposition is scoring run after run after run, someone needs to step up and say, “Enough is enough” and find a way to stop the bleeding. Obviously, in a sport like baseball, no one person can take over a game like in basketball or football, save for maybe a shut-down pitcher, but someone(s) need to step up down the stretch. The last 24 games of the season need to be used to get some younger guys experience, as well. With the amount of injuries the team has sustained this year, a lot of guys who weren’t originally slated to play have found time on the field. The stretch-run of this season, needs to be used to give those guys more at-bats or innings on the mound in preparation for next season. That’s not to say that the Eagles should concede the season to one of development, but a concerted effort should be made to get as large a portion of the roster as much experience as possible before heading to summer-ball. I apologize for the brevity of this post, but with the nature of this weekend’s series and The Master’s currently in a playoff hole, I need more time to get my thoughts straight. We’ll be coming out this week with a “Midseason Recap and Analysis” of the baseball team’s performance to-date, so be on the lookout for that, as it will include more on the UNC series.