UNC finishes school year with ACC-high six conference titles

By R.L. Bynum

North Carolina finished the ACC’s last school year as a 15-school conference with six conference titles, the most of any school in the league, ending a 44-year drought in fencing and a 39-year drought in men’s cross country.

UNC has 294 all-time ACC titles, well ahead of the next-highest total of 152 by Virginia.

The Tar Heels won titles in men’s cross country, field hockey, men’s indoor track & field, fencing, men’s golf and women’s tennis to nudge out N.C. State, which won five. The Wolfpack won in women’s cross country, men’s basketball, gymnastics, men’s swimming & diving and wrestling.

Florida State won four titles, Duke and Notre Dame each won three, Virginia two and five schools each had one title: Syracuse, Boston College, Wake Forest, Clemson and Pittsburgh.

Duke earned the final ACC title of the school year Sunday in Charlotte when its baseball team rolled to a 16–4 victory over Florida State in the championship game.

Parker Wolfe (top photo) led UNC to two of those titles. He won the ACC individual title in men’s cross country with a time of 23 minutes, 3.01 seconds as the Tar Heels captured their first team title since 1985 and earned Carolinas first ACC title of the school year. In the spring, Wolfe’s ACC-record-winning mile time of 3:54.17 ran UNC to its first men’s indoor track and field league championship since 1996.

The field hockey title came next. UNC’s seventh consecutive league championship, followed by an NCAA championship, came in the first season under head coach Erin Matson, who went from a spectacular playing career for the Tar Heels to a spectacular coaching debut.

UNC won its first fencing title since 1980, with Matt Jednak earning ACC Coach of the Year honors.

Carolina’s women’s tennis team, which won the national championship in 2023, captured its first league title since 2021.

The last Carolina league title of the school year came when the men’s golf team earned its first ACC championship since 2006 and 12th in school history.

Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics