No. 23 St. John’s Red Storm upset No. 6 UNC Tar Heels, 5-2, Wednesday night with a three-run seventh inning. It’s the second straight year St. John’s defeated a top-ten UNC team at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C.
The Johnnies improve to 4-0 while the Tar Heels fall to 2-3 this season. St. John’s holds a 0.73 team ERA and have yet to allow two or more earned runs in a game.
Both teams were scoreless through the first three innings. The Red Storm got the scoring started in the fourth with junior 2B Josh Shaw reaching on an error to shortstop scoring senior CF Jamie Galazin. St. John’s junior Anthony Brocato hit a sac fly to score SS redshirt-senior Luke Stampfl to take the 2-0 lead.
UNC answered back in the bottom half of the fourth. UNC junior OF Dylan Enwiller knocked in two runs to tie it at 2-2. Only one run was earned due to an error by Red Storm senior catcher Robert Boselli III.
The score remained at 2-2 until the seventh inning. St. John’s sophomore OF Mike Antico led off the top of the seventh with a solo home run off Tar Heels’ pitcher Cooper Criswell.
UNC could not put another run on the board despite leaving at least two runners on base in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. The Tar Heels left 13 runners on base compared to the Red Storm’s seven.
Junior Turner French picked up the win for St. John’s while Criswell earned the loss for the Tar Heels. Joe LaSorsa earned the save for the second consecutive game.
Sophomore Jeff Belge started for St. John’s and pitched 4.2 innings giving up two runs (one earned) while striking our four and walking three. Junior Taylor Sugg started for UNC pitching four innings giving up two runs (none earned) striking out two.
Senior third baseman John Valente had a team-high two hits for the Johnnies. Three UNC players tallied two hits.
The Red Storm return to the diamond this weekend at the USA Baseball National Training Complex. St. John’s will play Monmouth Friday at 3 p.m., followed by UMBC Saturday and Penn State on Sunday.
