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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. Andrew Carraway (Sr., Marietta, Ga.) pitched seven strong innings, and Steven Proscia (Fr., Suffern, N.Y.) and Jarrett Parker (So., Stafford, Va.) each homered as the No. 8 Virginia baseball team picked up a 5-2 win over No. 5 North Carolina Saturday at Boshamer Stadium. The series is now even at a game apiece heading into the Sunday finale at 1 p.m.

Carraway (4-0) was brilliant on the mound, working seven innings and giving up one earned run, three hits and a walk while striking out three. Matt Packer (Jr., Germantown, Tenn.) pitched the final two innings to close out the game. Adam Warren (3-2) started for North Carolina and tossed 6.2 innings, allowing four earned runs and eight hits while fanning five.

Virginia used a pair of two-run innings in the fifth and sixth innings to break a scoreless tie. Dan Grovatt (So., Tabernacle, N.J.) broke out of a recent slump with a 3-for-4 effort at the plate. Proscia and Parker each added two hits, while John Hicks (Fr., Sandy Hook, Va.) had a single to extend his hitting streak to nine games. Dustin Ackley homered and had half of North Carolina’s four hits.

Carraway twice escaped big jams to keep the game scoreless. In the second, Kyle Seager led off with a double, but Carraway came back to retire the next three batters. In the fourth, the Tar Heels put runners on second and third with one out. Garrett Gore then hit a grounder down the first-base line that Danny Hultzen (Fr., Bethesda, Md.) made a diving stop on to record the out while keeping the runner at third. Carraway then induced a Mark Fleury groundout to end the inning.

After four scoreless innings, Virginia (22-3, 6-3 ACC) scored the game’s first two runs in the fifth inning. Tyler Cannon (Jr., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) was hit by a pitch to lead off and moved to second on a Hicks single. Both runners advanced on a David Coleman (So., Richmond, Va.) sacrifice bunt. Corey Hunt (R-So., Charlottesville, Va.) then singled off the glove of diving second baseman Levi Michael to score Cannon, and Jarrett Parker (So., Stafford, Va.) lifted a sacrifice fly to left field to bring home Hicks and give UVa a 2-0 lead.

The Cavaliers doubled their advantage in the sixth inning. Grovatt hit a one-out single and Proscia followed with a towering blast just to the right of the 370 sign in left-center field for his fourth home run of the season.

North Carolina (19-6, 6-4) got on the board literally in the bottom of the sixth when Ackley swatted his sixth home run of the season a line drive which caromed off the scoreboard in left-center field.

UVa answered that shot with one of its own in the seventh inning when Parker launched his second home run in as many days. The latest home run came against UNC reliever Logan Munson, who was brought in to face Parker and force a lefty-lefty matchup. The solo blast to left-center was Parker’s sixth round-tripper of the season. It also marked UVa’s 24th home run this season one shy of the team’s total in all of 2008.

The Tar Heels added a run in the ninth inning on a solo home run by Gore, his second long ball of the year.

The teams will play the rubber game of the series with a 1 p.m. matchup Saturday. WINA 1070-AM will have the radio broadcast in the Charlottesville area, and it also will be available online with V Pass.

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