It was something of a small moment, a footnote during North Carolina's 7-1 victory against N.C. State here on Saturday, but to Mike Fox, the Tar Heels coach, it provided further proof of his team's continuing maturation process.
UNC didn't necessarily need the insurance runs, not with how right-hander Luca Dalatri started the game, allowing one run through six innings, and not with how Rodney Hutchison, Jr., finished it. And yet those runs came, anyway, on Logan Warmoth's single in the eighth inning.
Warmoth's hit, with the bases loaded, drove home two runs. A 5-1 lead grew to 7-1 and, perhaps more important, UNC's momentum and confidence and mojo, which seem to be ever-expanding qualities these days, grew with it.