By R.L. Bynum
As the baseball team begins its pursuit on Friday of a second consecutive trip to the College World Series, it has already been a dominant school year for North Carolina athletics, continuing years of consistent excellence.
The numbers are astounding.
With the baseball team winning the final ACC title of the school year, UNC was the only school that won four ACC championships (also field hockey, men’s cross country and women’s lacrosse). Four others (Virginia, Notre Dame, Clemson, Stanford and Duke) won three titles, and six (including N.C. State) finished the school year without an ACC title.
That gives UNC 299 team ACC titles all-time, which leads by a wide margin over Virginia’s total of 158. Hat tip to Adam Lucas, who noted on X (formerly Twitter) that the Cavaliers could win an ACC title in all of their sports in the next six school years and still be three behind Carolina (assuming the Tar Heels don’t win any, which is unlikely). Lucas also posted some of the achievements listed below.
When the women’s lacrosse team capped its second perfect national championship season in four years, coupled with the women’s soccer title, it meant that this was UNC’s 13th consecutive school year with multiple national titles.
The women’s lacrosse title was UNC’s 52nd NCAA team title (the above tweet lists 63 titles, but that includes the Helms Foundation men’s basketball title in 1924, as well as AIAW and ITA titles). Combining the totals of Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Florida State, N.C. State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech still equal that total.
For this school year, North Carolina is the only school in the country that made a bowl game and participated in NCAA tournaments in volleyball, women’s soccer, men’s soccer, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, softball, baseball, men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse.
They didn’t just participate; the Tar Heels excelled. In addition to earning titles in women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse, they advanced to the NCAA semifinals in field hockey and women’s tennis and the Sweet 16 in women’s basketball.
The women’s lacrosse and field hockey teams combined for one loss this school year and have combined for three perfect seasons (undefeated and national champions) in the past three school years.
Individually, Parker Wolfe, among many outstanding individual performances, became the first runner in ACC history to repeat as the 5K and 10K champion, winning conference MVP for a second time.
Even before the women’s lacrosse title, UNC was second in the Directors’ Cup standings behind Stanford.
And the Tar Heels clearly aren’t done if Coach Scott Forbes’ baseball team has anything to do with it.
Photo via @uncwlax
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