It’s time to ride your horses in late-season baseball and Duke did exactly that in the series opener against North Carolina.

Duke got a go-ahead RBI double senior catcher Alex Stone in the seventh inning and rode star closer Charlie Beilenson for the last three innings of a 5-3 win over visiting UNC on Thursday night at Jack Coombs Field.

Duke (35-16, 16-12 ACC) was leading for most of the game, having gotten an RBI single by Logan Bravo in the first and an unearned run in the second.

Kyle Johnson was motoring through UNC’s lineup, too, retiring the first 12 batters he faced before a leadoff walk in the fifth. UNC (39-12, 20-8) got its first hit on Luke Stevenson’s home run to lead off the sixth.

Duke got that run back in the bottom of the inning when Bravo homered. But UNC tied the game in the seventh on Parks Harbor’s leadoff homer, and then on a sacrifice fly. Johnson was replaced by Charlie Beilenson (6-2), who allowed the inherited runner to score on a single and sacrifice fly.

So, with the game tied at 3-3, AJ Gracia and Stone hit back-to-back one-out doubles in the bottom of the seventh. Stone has a 10-game hitting streak, during which he’s driven in 21 runs and has 12 extra base hits.

Beilenson hit a batter in the eighth with two outs and struck out Harbor to end the inning. After Duke added an insurance run in the bottom of that inning, the iron-armed closer got two strikeouts and a flyout for a 1-2-3 ninth. Beilenson has pitched 52 1/3 innings this season; the only Blue Devil who’s thrown more is starter Jonathan Santucci, who is out this week and possibly next week for the ACC tournament because of a rib injury.