By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — Vance Honeycutt’s likely last season at Carolina couldn’t have started much better, making history and helping the Tar Heels get off to an impressive start.

The third home run of the season for the talented junior center fielder, a 365-foot grand slam that just made it over the right-field fence in the fourth inning, sparked No. 15 UNC to an 8–7 victory over Elon on a cool Tuesday evening at Boshamer Stadium.

The Heels are 4–0 for the third time in four years and 28th time in program history heading into the big weekend series with No. 11 East Carolina.

“Vance shows you why he’s Vance,” UNC coach Scott Forbes said, noting that he missed most of the fall season and still is off to a good start despite six strikeouts. “It takes a little while sometimes to get hot, but that was a big swing of the bat for us, probably the biggest.”

Honeycutt, a likely high pick in the June amateur draft, became the second player in program history with at least 40 homers and 50 steals and the fourth member of the 40/40 club. He had a conversation with Forbes before that at-bat.

Forbes told him to “just get out there and compete,” said Honeycutt, who joined Jarrett Shearin in the 40/50 club but wasn’t aware of it until after the game. “Take all the other mechanical things out of it, just kind of the mentality to have. If I didn’t get it done, somebody else will. That’s kind of how we’re focused around here.”

Honeycutt is hitting .286 with eight RBI and three steals leading off for the Tar Heels, going 2 for 4 on Tuesday.

“It’s baseball,” Honeycutt said. “Just getting out there and competing. Just trying to have good at-bats and continue to get better.”

Honeycutt was still recovering from the back injury that forced him to miss the last 10 games of last season, which is why he barely saw live pitching in the fall. That makes his production in the first four games even more impressive.

“Obviously Vance would like to be hitting .400, but I don’t keep up with that,” Forbes said. “I’m just keeping up with the quality of his at-bats. He’s getting on base at a high clip. It looks like his timing is getting better and better.”

Honeycutt’s slam gave UNC the lead for good, and redshirt sophomore closer Dalton Pence slammed the door on the Phoenix.

The left-hander struck out the last two batters in a perfect ninth inning for his first save to go with a win when he threw 54 pitches and struck out five in 3⅔ innings against Wagner on Saturday.

“Dalton is a horse,” Forbes said. “And he wasn’t really taxed the other day, and he would have killed me if I hadn’t put them in right there.”

Pence, who had two saves last season, obviously has the makeup you’re looking for from a closer, and he showed it against Elon.

“I don’t feel pressured in that situation,” Pence said. “I’m out there playing the game of baseball and playing for the guys there backing me up. Just another day at the ballpark. Don’t really sweat it too much; just out there having fun for me.”

He’d like to forget one day at the ballpark against ECU last season when he blew a save chance. Forbes admits he regrets not going right back to Pence after that, and is committed to him as his closer this season.

“As you know, last year, my second [game] wasn’t so great,” Pence said of that ECU outing. “But yeah, it feels good to have a little bit of confidence going into the ECU series.”

In addition to having a closer’s mentality, he has the typical approach of a closer.

“Just attacking hitters and going right after them,” Pence said. “All of us pitchers here, we get in trouble when we try to nibble or go around guys. Our stuff works best when we go right after hitters. As closer, you’ve got to have that mentality of, ‘I’m gonna attack guys’ and trying to not give them a chance to get on base or score.”

Elon (1–3), which dropped two of three games in a season-opening home series with Navy after going 33–22 last season, banged out 12 hits off eight Carolina pitchers. Sophomore right-hander Matthew Matthijs (1–0) retired four of the five batters he faced in 1⅓ scoreless innings to get the win.

“The thing I liked the most was every pitcher pitched with conviction,” Forbes said. “That’s what I’m looking for early in the season. You’re not gonna be perfect. But they looked like they were attacking the hitters. They looked like they weren’t backing down. That’s over half the battle at this level.”

UNC scored three two-out runs in the second on left fielder Casey Cook’s RBI single to left, third baseman Ryan Sprock’s fielding error and right fielder Anthony Donofrio’s 2–2 single to right. 

Carolina trailed for the first time this season after a four-run Elon fourth inning.

After center fielder Vince Fattore’s leadoff homer to left field, right-handed UNC freshman starter Jason DeCaro (3⅔ innings, five hits, four earned runs, three walks, three strikeouts) struck out the next batter but left after loading the bases with a hit batsman, single and walk.

UNC sophomore left-hander Kyle Percival gave up a two-run single on a two-strike pitch to nine-hole catcher Alex Duffey to tie it. Matthijs came on one out later, giving up an RBI single to right fielder Charlie Granatell.

“Honestly, I don’t know how we gave up seven runs,” Forbes said. “I thought DeCaro, for a 17-year-old on his first start, was really good. He didn’t really have command of a slider like he needed it to get strikeouts.”

Honeycutt made that Elon lead brief when he followed an error and singles from Alberto Osuna and Alex Madera with his grand slam with one out in the fourth.

Elon struck out four times in the sixth. But the first strikeout victim, former UNC shortstop Justin Szestowicki, reached on a wild pitch and later scored on Sprock’s bases-loaded infield single.

Cook, who had multiple hits for the third consecutive game and is the only Tar Heel with a hit in all four games, tacked on a run in the seventh on a two-out RBI single before DH Connor Offshack’s RBI single highlighted a two-run Elon eighth to cut UNC’s lead to one.

NOTES — The Tar Heels host the first game of a three-city weekend series with East Carolina at 4 p.m. Friday (ESPN3). The other two games start at 2 p.m., with Saturday’s game in Fayetteville’s Segra Stadium (no TV or video streaming coverage) — the home of the Carolina League’s Fayetteville Woodpeckers — and Sunday’s game in Greenville (ESPN+). … The Pirates (3–1), who swept three games from Rider last weekend with a 30–2 run advantage and two shutouts, lost 7–6 Tuesday at Campbell. … Shearin had 40 homers and 50 steals in 238 games from 1996 to 1999. … The Elon game was the first of 15 Tuesday or Wednesday non-conference games, with 12 in Chapel Hill. … UNC won its 16th consecutive game over Elon and leads the series 41–9, including 34–7 at Boshamer Stadium. … Carolina (2,999–1,648–7) is a win away from becoming the eighth program in NCAA history with 3,000 wins.

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No. 15 UNC 8, Elon 7

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Date	Day/ month	Time/ score	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	February
16	Friday	W, 10–3	vs. Wagner	1–0
17	Saturday	W, 16–5	vs. Wagner	2–0
18	Sunday	W, 20–6	vs. Wagner	3–0
20	Tuesday	W, 8–7	vs. Elon	4–0
23	Friday	W, 2–1	vs. No. 7 East Carolina	5–0
24	Saturday	L, 7–4	vs. No. 7 East Carolina in Fayetteville	5–1
25	Sunday	L, 10–9	at No. 7 East Carolina	5–2
27	Tuesday	W, 8–2	vs. VCU	6–2
28	Wednesday	W, 12–3	vs. Longwood	7–2
	March
1	Friday	W, 12–2	vs. Princeton	8–2
2	Saturday	W, 11–2	vs. Princeton	9–2
3	Sunday	W, 13–6	vs. Princeton	10–2
5	Tuesday	W, 7–3	at Campbell	11–2
8	Friday	W, 2–1	vs. Pittsburgh	12–2, 1–0 ACC
9	Saturday	W, 7–3	vs. Pittsburgh	13–2, 2–0 ACC
10	Sunday	W, 6–5, 10 innings	vs. Pittsburgh	14–2, 3–0 ACC
12	Tuesday	W, 13–7	vs. Rutgers	15–2
13	Wednesday	W, 9–8	vs. Rutgers	16–2
15	Friday	L, 14–1	at Miami	16–3, 3–1 ACC
16	Saturday	L, 2–1	at Miami	16–4, 3–2 ACC
17	Sunday	W, 18–6	at Miami	17–4, 4–2 ACC
19	Tuesday	W, 11–0, 7 innings	vs. UNCW	18–4
22	Friday	W, 5–4	vs. Georgia Tech	19–4, 5–2 ACC
23	Saturday	W, 11–5	vs. Georgia Tech	20–4, 6–2 ACC
24	Sunday	W, 9–2	vs. Georgia Tech	21–4, 7–2 ACC
26	Tuesday	W, 10–8	vs. N.C. A&T	22–4
29	Friday	W, 6–5	at No. 8 Wake Forest	23–4, 8–2 ACC
30	Saturday	W, 10–6	at No. 8 Wake Forest	24–4, 9–2 ACC
31	Sunday	W, 14–10	at No. 8 Wake Forest	25–4, 10–2 ACC
	April
4	Thursday	L, 14–11	at No. 14 Virginia	25–5, 10–3 ACC
5	Friday	L, 7–2	at No. 14 Virginia	25–6, 10–4 ACC
6	Saturday	W, 12–7	at No. 14 Virginia	26–6, 11–4 ACC
9	Tuesday	L, 2–1	vs. No. 24 South Carolina in Charlotte	26–7
12	Friday	W, 13–0, 6½ innings	vs. Notre Dame	27–7, 12–4 ACC
13	Saturday	W, 7–2	vs. Notre Dame	28–7, 13–4 ACC
14	Sunday	W, 10–3	vs. Notre Dame	29–7, 14–4 ACC
16	Tuesday	L, 5–4	vs. No. 13 Coastal Carolina	29–8
18	Thursday	L, 9–8	at No. 21 N.C. State	29–9, 14–5 ACC
19	Friday	L, 5–4	at No. 21 N.C. State	29–10, 14–6 ACC
20	Saturday	W, 14–3	at No. 21 N.C. State	30–10, 15–6 ACC
23	Tuesday	W, 5–2	vs. Gardner-Webb	31–10
26	Friday	W, 8–1	vs. Virginia Tech	32–10, 16–6 ACC
27	Saturday	W, 6–3	vs. Virginia Tech	33–10, 17–6 ACC
28	Sunday	1 p.m.	vs. Virginia Tech	ESPN3
30	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. Charlotte	ACCN
	May
1	Wednesday	6 p.m.	vs. William & Mary	ESPN3
7	Tuesday	6 p.m.	vs. Campbell	ESPN3
10	Friday	6 p.m.	vs. Louisville	ESPN3
11	Saturday	2 p.m.	vs. Louisville	ESPN3
12	Sunday	1 p.m.	vs. Louisville	ACCN
14	Tuesday	6 p.m.	at UNCW	FloSports
16	Thursday	6 p.m.	at No. 6 Duke	ACCN
17	Friday	6 p.m.	at No. 6 Duke	ESPN3
18	Saturday	1 p.m.	at No. 6 Duke	ESPN3
21–26	Tuesday- Sunday	TBA	ACC tournament in Charlotte	ACCN
31	Friday	TBA	NCAA Regional	TBA
	June
1–3	Saturday- Monday	TBA	NCAA Regional	TBA
7–10	Friday- Monday	TBA	NCAA Super Regional	TBA
14–24	Friday- Monday	TBA	College World Series in Omaha, Neb.	TBA

Photos courtesy of UNC Athletics