By R.L. Bynum

After making a thrilling run to the Men’s College World Series, North Carolina moved up one spot to a season-high No. 5 in the final D1 Baseball Top 25 released on Wednesday as the honors keep rolling in for junior outfielder Vance Honeycutt.

UNC slipped one spot to No. 4 in the final Baseball America poll and remained at a season-high No. 5 in the final USA Today coaches poll.

Also on Wednesday, D1 Baseball named Honeycutt to its All-America first team and reliever Dalton Pence to its All-America second team and also was named to the NCAA All-Tournament team. Honeycutt became the fifth player in program history to make five All-America teams after making the first teams for the American Baseball Coaches Association, Perfect Game, Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

Carolina is one of five ACC teams in the top 10 in the D1 Baseball poll, with Florida State No. 4 (49–17; up five spots), N.C. State No. 6 (39–23; up five spots), Virginia No. 7 (46–17; up 11 spots) and Clemson No. 9 (44–16; down six spots). Also in the final poll is Duke at No. 24 (40–20; down 12 spots), while Wake Forest (38–22), No. 19 in the previous poll, dropped out.

The Tar Heels (48–16), who were No. 15 in the preseason poll and fell to a season-low No. 20 on March 18, won the most games under fourth-year Coach Scott Forbes and the most since winning 49 in 2017.

LSU (43–23), which UNC beat twice in the Chapel Hill Regional, fell out of the poll after previously being ranked No. 25. West Virginia (36–24), which the Tar Heels swept in the Chapel Hill Super Regional, went from unranked to No. 13 in the final poll.

On Tuesday, the ABCA and ATEC named Forbes the Division I Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, becoming the third UNC coach to earn the honor after Mike Fox won it four times and Mike Roberts won it in 1989.

---

The Tar Heel Tribune Facebook group moved to a new location. Follow the page at this link so that you don’t miss any UNC sports coverage.

---

Honeycutt hit a career-best .318 while setting school records for home runs (28) and runs (88) with career-highs of 70 RBI and 81 hits. He finished the season ranked third nationally in runs and seventh in home runs while leading the ACC in both categories. Honeycutt ranked third in the conference in stolen bases (28) and total bases (182) and sixth in RBIs and slugging percentage (.714).

Pence, who earned second-team All-America honors from Baseball America and third-team honors from Perfect Game, was 5–1 record with eight saves in an ACC-best 36 appearances, second-most among all Division I pitchers.

---

D1 Baseball Top 25

Rank	Team	Record	NCAA tournament Record	Previous
1	Tennessee	60–13	10–2	1
2	Texas A&M	53–15	9–2	4
3	Kentucky	46–16	6–2	2
4	Florida State	49–17	7–2	9
5	North Carolina	48–16	6–3	6
6	N.C. State	38–23	5–3	11
7	Virginia	46–17	5–2	18
8	Florida	36–30	7–2	NR
9	Clemson	44–16	3–2	3
10	Oregon State	45–16	3–2	7
11	Georgia	43–17	4–2	10
12	Oregon	40–20	3–2	NR
13	West Virginia	36–24	3–2	NR
14	Kansas State	35–26	3–2	NR
15	Connecticut	35–26	3–3	NR
16	Evansville	39–26	4–3	NR
17	Arkansas	44–16	1–2	5
18	Oklahoma	40–21	3–2	8
19	UC Santa Barbara	44–14	2–2	13
20	East Carolina	46–17	3–2	14
21	Oklahoma State	42–19	2–2	16
22	Mississippi State	40–23	2–2	17
23	UC Irvine	45–14	2–2	21
24	Duke	40–20	1–2	12
25	Arizona	36–23	1–2	15
Dropped out
	Wake Forest	38–22	0–2	19
	Indiana State	44–15	2–2	20
	Louisiana	42–20	2–2	22
	Southern Miss	43–20	2–2	23

---

UNC scores

Date(s)	Day/ month	Scores	Opponent (current rank)	Record
	February
14–15	Fri.-Sat.	W, 5–1; W, 8–3; W, 4–2	vs. Texas Tech	3–0
18	Tuesday	W, 12–9	vs. Kansas State	4–0
22–24	Sat.-Mon.	W, 2–0; W, 11–6; W, 6–4	vs. East Carolina (DBAP, CH, G’ville)	7–0
25	Tuesday	W, 7–4	vs. VCU	8–0
26	Wednesday	W, 13–4	vs. N.C. A&T	9–0
28	Friday	W, 16–2	vs. Stony Brook	10–0
	March
1–2	Sat.-Sun.	W, 6–1; W, 9–5	vs. Stony Brook	12–0
4	Tuesday	W, 6–4 (11)	vs. No. 11 Coastal Carolina	13–0
7–9	Fri.-Sun.	L, 13–9; W, 11–1 (7); L, 7–0	vs. Stanford	14–2, 1–2 ACC
11	Tuesday	W, 7–3 (10)	at UNCW	15–2
14, 16	Fri., Sun.	L, 8–7; W, 6–4; L, 5–0	at Louisville	16–4, 2–4
19	Wednesday	L, 5–1	vs. UConn	16–5
21–23	Fri.-Sun.	W, 5–1; L, 3–2; W, 10–0 (7)	at Boston College	18–6, 4–5
25	Tuesday	W, 13–8	vs. South Carolina in Charlotte	19–7
28–30	Fri.-Sun.	W, 2–0; W, 4–2; L, 4–2	vs. Miami	21–7, 6–6
	April
1	Tuesday	W, 11–1 (7)	vs. Gardner-Webb	22–7
3–5	Thur.-Sat.	W, 4–3; L, 9–5; W, 8–7 (14)	vs. Duke	24–8, 8–7
8	Tuesday	W, 12–10	at Elon	25–8
11–13	Fri.-Sun.	W, 11–1 (7); W, 17–1 (7); W, 3–2	vs. Wake Forest	28–8, 11–7
15	Tuesday	W, 14–4 (8)	vs. Charlotte	29–8
18–20	Fri-Sun.	W, 9–6; L, 10–6: W, 7–5	at Virginia Tech	31–9, 13–8
25–27	Fri.-Sun.	W, 15–5; L, 4–2; W, 6–0	at Pittsburgh	33–10, 15–9
29	Tuesday	W, 13–4	vs. George Mason	34–10
30	Wednesday	W, 14–3	vs. Queens	35–10
	May
6	Tuesday	W, 10–1	vs. Campbell	36–10
8–9	Thurs.-Fri.	W, 8–1; L, 8–5	vs. N.C. State	37–11, 16–10
15–17	Thurs.-Sat.	W, 8–3; W, 11–1 (7); L, 5–4	at No. 7 Florida State	39–12, 18–11
		ACC tournament	Durham
23	Friday	Quarterfinal: W, 7–3	Boston College	40–12
24	Saturday	Semifinal: W, 7–5	No. 7 Florida State	41–12
25	Sunday	Final: W, 14–4	No. 14 Clemson	42–12
		Chapel Hill Regional
30	Friday	W, 4–0	Holy Cross	43–12
31	Saturday	W, 11–5	Oklahoma	44–12
	June
1	Sunday	L, 9–5	Oklahoma	44–13
2	Monday	W, 14–4	Oklahoma	45–13
		Chapel Hill Super Regional	Best-of-3 series
6	Friday	W, 18–2	No. 21 Arizona	46–13
7	Saturday	L, 10–8	No. 21 Arizona	46–14
8	Sunday	L, 4–3	No. 21 Arizona	46–15

Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics