North Carolina was able to survive a scare against LSU in the Chapel Hill Regional and get a win in extra innings on Monday to move on to the Super Regional. A massive piece of that success ended up coming from pitcher Dalton Pence.
Following the game, Pence opened up on what it meant for him to close out the Chapel Hill Regional for UNC.
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“It meant a lot to me,” Dalton Pence said. “Sitting out my freshman year with injury and then coming back last year. This year’s just been a special year I feel like for his pitching staff, working with these coaches, and this program’s got a rich history. We want to keep that going. So, it’s meant the world to me.”
North Carolina leaned on Pence in the final win against LSU. He pitched the final 3.2 innings of the game for UNC. During that stretch, he only allowed one hit and two walks while striking out four. That was just a couple of days after he had a similarly strong 2.2 innings performance against LSU in their first game against one another.
Dalton Pence has been one of North Carolina’s best pitchers throughout the season, with a 2.10 ERA in 51.1 innings pitched over 34 appearances. He also has 66 strikeouts and seven saves on the season.
Head coach Scott Forbes has been able to lean on Dalton Pence as a reliable workhorse in the bullpen for the Tar Heels. That’s something that didn’t necessarily seem possible during his freshman season when he was out for the year with an injury.
“He’s a horse and yesterday’s game we had a plan. Unless it got really close, we didn’t want to use certain guys we feel like could lengthen out. They work so hard. That’s a credit to Coach [Bryant] Gaines for managing the pitching staff so well all year so you can have a guy like [Jason] DeCaro come back and throw off 60 pitches and then [Matthew] Matthijs and Pence,” Forbes said.
“Dalton is able to do that because he is just a blue collar hard working kid. I mean look at him. He’s got bigger, he’s gotten stronger, and you don’t recover if you don’t get addicted to that weight room. That kid we are lucky to have him here, that’s for sure. I saw him go through the injury and to see him work so hard to come back, it’s been really really cool for me.”
For his own part, Pence feels comfortable with the workload, even coming off that injury. He just needs to stick to his schedule and routines.
“Staying ready, stretching, and like Coach said going in after the games and doing my post,” Pence said. “And doing everything I can off the field to put my body in the best position possible to go out the next day.”
North Carolina needed to come from behind to beat LSU, scoring a run to tie it in the ninth inning before winning the game with another run in the 10th inning. For Dalton Pence, all of that just added to how emotional the final out ended up being for him.
“I mean, it was the best feeling I’ve felt in the world probably,” Pence said. “I mean it was. I wasn’t feeling anything in that moment and it was great.”
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