Tar Heels slice up Cavs

By Jay Jenkins

Published: May 9, 2008

Jacob Thompson has a beef with the baseball gods.

For countless reasons, some of his own doing, Virginia’s ace pitcher has witnessed his share of tough luck one season after sporting a perfect record.

Another example was on display Friday night at Davenport Field.

After being spotted an early lead against No. 2 North Carolina, Thompson could not stop the bleeding during a five-hit, four-run fourth inning that propelled the Tar Heels to a 9-3 victory in the series opener.

“That seems to be the story all year with me,” said Thompson, who was bumped back to his original Friday night spot. “I will have a rough first inning and settle down for a couple of innings and then I won’t really lose it, but things just won’t go my way.

“When I need to make a pitch, I will make a pitch and they will just get a hit. I just can’t get anything put together. I just can’t seem to catch a break.”

The loss, which included a 31-minute rain delay, dropped Virginia to 33-16 overall and 13-12 in the ACC. UNC (41-8, 19-5) won its 16th game in its last 17 contests.

Before most of the late-arriving crowd was inside the stadium, the Tar Heels’ potent offense spotted starter Alex White a two-run cushion lead aided by an RBI single from Tim Fedroff and a fielding error from UVa shortstop Greg Miclat.

“They jumped on us pretty big,” Miclat said, “and I just wanted to do something offensively in the bottom of the inning to help jumpstart the team.”

Miclat did just that - the junior singled, stole second off White and scored on an RBI single to left by David Adams. The Cavaliers tied the game when Adams scored on a walk, but stranded the bases loaded.

As White’s pitch count climbed quickly in the second inning, the Cavaliers took advantage again as Miclat singled, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored again on a single by Adams.

White, however, was near perfect from that point forward, hurling six innings and fanning eight batters. And thanks to the offensive explosion in the fourth, White easily improved to 8-2 on the season.

Thompson (5-3) managed to pitch six full innings, scattering two hits over his final two frames, but the damage was done.

Perhaps the biggest hit in the lengthy fourth inning for UNC came on a two-out double by first baseman Dustin Ackley, who finished with two hits and three RBI.

“In that inning, Jacob was leaving pitches up in the zone, and to their credit, they took advantage of it,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor. “The pitch to Ackley was up in the zone with two strikes and Ackley is one of the best hitters in the country. You can’t make that mistake with him.”

Thompson got very little support from the bottom portion of Virginia’s batting order - the bottom six hitters combined to go 1 for 28 in the contest.

“We need everybody to fight up there and find ways to be productive,” O’Connor said.

There were two bright spots as Adams and Miclat, who had seen their batting averages decline of late, combined for six hits and all three runs.

“We lost and nothing feels good when you lose,” Adams said, “but offensively I am happy to see a couple of hits out of me.”

Virginia and UNC are slated to play the second game of the series tonight at 6 p.m.