After a thrilling season of baseball, the UNC Wilmington Seahawks finally brought a close to the campaign by losing to second ranked UNC in the championship of the Cary Regional in the NCAA tournament.

The Seahawks entered the tournament limping following back to back upsets that dumped them out of the conference tournament. However, they hit the NCAA tourney running with a 5-2 victory over local rival Elon.

Junior starting pitcher Brad Holt turned in a heroic performance allowing only two runs in 8 2/3. The Seahawks grabbed the lead in the second inning and never looked back as Alex Hill and Daniel Hargrave supplied some insurance with RBI singles in the sixth.

The win in game one set a date with UNC on Saturday. Facing ACC Pitcher-of-the-Year Alex White, the Seahawks couldn’t get anything going offensively. UNCW starter Jeff Hatcher did his best to keep his club in the game. Hatcher pitched a complete game and struck out a career high nine batters. However, the Tar Heels were able to knock out two home runs off Hatcher and that proved to be the difference as the Heels booked their spot in the championship with the 5-1 lead.

The loss sent the Seahawks into the bottom half of the bracket where they would face Elon once more in an elimination game. What ensued Sunday afternoon will be one for Seahawk fans to remember forever as they completed the most unlikely comeback.

A back and forth affair, the Phoenix finally took control of the game with a 7-4 lead in the sixth. They continued their hot streak in the eighth, pushing across four more to balloon the lead to 11-4.

With the Seahawks up against the wall in the ninth, they needed nothing short of a miracle. And that’s exactly what they provided.

After stringing together a few singles to start the inning, it became obvious that the Seahawks weren’t going down without a fight. Jason Appel and Mark Carver knocked in runs with singles and Nate Hall followed up by knocking in two more with a one-out double.

“Once we got the first four hits, I think everybody started to believe, hey, we have a chance,” Seahawk Head Coach Mark Scalf said. “It just continued to flow for us and continued to happen for us.”

Mike Rooney’s single later in the inning brought two in to tie the game at 11. Then senior Shane French, who entered the game in the ninth inning as a pinch hitter, blasted a double off the wall to plate the go-ahead runs.

With a stunning 13-11 lead, the Seahawks pushed across two more to cap an 11 run ninth to finally win 15-11.

“That was probably one of the most amazing comebacks I’ve ever seen… guys had a really good approach not trying to do too much with the baseball and pushing on to the next guy” Seahawk starting pitcher Seth Frankoff said.

There wasn’t much time to celebrate the amazing win however as it meant the Seahawks would have to turn around and play UNC again an hour later for the championship. Since the Tar Heels had already beaten the Seahawks, they would have to take two away from the regional’s first seed.

Once again, a big home run from the Tar Heels was the difference as UNC took the crown with a 7-3 victory. Seahawk starter Larry Stalefsky turned in a gutsy performance, throwing nearly five innings after also pitching hours earlier in the win over Elon.

Trailing 7-1 entering the ninth, the Seahawks plated two run and loaded the bases to hint at another stunning comeback. However they fell short as Tar Heel closer Rob Wooten struck out the final two batters of the game.

“I thought our guys did a tremendous job continuing to battle the entire game and we put ourselves in a position to win a ball game in the ninth one more time,” Scalf said after the conclusion of the regional.