University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Butler
Tar Heels Outlast Butler, 2-1, In Pitchers' Duel
February 27, 2016 | Softball
CHAPEL HILL – UNC softball opened the Carolina Classic with a nail-biting 2-1 victory over Butler on Friday night. Junior Kendra Lynch limited the Bulldogs to just five hits in the game, while Aquilla Mateen was 3-for-3 and scored the game-winning run to lead the Tar Heels to victory in the hard-fought pitcher's duel. With the win, Carolina improved to 5-6, while Butler falls to 4-7.
“Sometimes you have to grit out a win, and we did,” said head coach Donna J. Papa. “I thought that we played great defense today. I thought that we were really solid. Kendra did a great job. She had no walks. That's huge. I thought she had a really good effort.”
Mateen singled in all three of her at-bats, while Taylor Wike and Kristen Brown each doubled. Wike scored the first run of the game, driven in by Brown, and Lauren Fuller had the second Tar Heel RBI on a squeeze bunt. Lynch and Destiny DeBerry picked up the final two Tar Heel hits, while Wike and Darby Rosen each walked.
“She made some good adjustments,” said Papa of Mateen. “She did a delayed steal. She's a very smart base runner. She just did a great job today. I'm really proud of her. She put it all together in this game and did a lot of good things for us. I'm really happy for her that some of those things she worked on, she made those adjustments and they worked in the game. That will definitely build confidence for her.”
“I didn't try to do too much,” said Mateen. “Just putting the ball in play. It felt great. I knew [the runs would] come. We just had to put it together and get good pitch selection at the plate. I feel like our hitters fought through all of that and zoned in on their pitch and got it done.”
Lynch (4-3) went the distance in the circle for Carolina, allowing one run on five hits and no walks with two strikeouts. Kristin Gutierrez (1-4) went the full six for Butler, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks with five strikeouts.
Taylor Wike led off the game with a double down the right field line and Mateen followed with a bunt single, but the Tar Heels stranded the pair in scoring position for a frustrating start to the game.
“We need to get better at being more selective and going after good pitches early,” said Papa. “We got in a hole. We let good pitches go by for strikes, then we swung at her rise ball. She mixed her pitches well, but we also helped her a lot by not being disciplined at the plate. We need to do a better job finishing.”
Carolina had a runner in scoring position in each of the next two innings, but it wasn't until the bottom of the fifth that the first run finally crossed the plate. Wike got things going with a full-count walk, then Mateen picked up her third hit of the day on a slap and run. Brown sent the first run across the plate with a double to left center, then Fuller executed a perfect sacrifice squeeze to score Mateen and make it 2-0 Tar Heels.
“Lauren Fuller executed that squeeze really nicely,” said Papa. “She did a great job with that. Kiwi, I gave her a slap and run. She was attacking the first pitch, runner was going. That was executed really well. KB after her first at bat, she bounced back and drove that ball to right center field and did a really nice job. Our hitters started to come on later in the game. I thought Jill came in and put a nice bunt down. We executed some things better in the later innings.”
Maggie MacBeth led off the the sixth with a single, but got caught in a run down trying to steal third for another scoreless inning.
Alyssa Lach was hit by a pitch with one out in the top of the seventh, and her pinch runner Jenna Foreman stole second and scored on an RBI single by Cheyenne Thompson, her second hit of the game. However, Lynch got Riley Carter to pop up to first base for the final out of the game to seal up the 2-1 victory.
Carolina returns to Anderson Stadium on Saturday afternoon to take on IUPUI in day two of the Carolina Classic. UNC will play in the third game of the day, with an estimated start time of 3:30 p.m.
