By R.L. Bynum

OMAHA, Neb. — North Carolina is two wins away from its first national championship after pouring on the offense early, thanks to white-hot Owen Hull returning to the “O-zone.”

The No. 4 Tar Heels pounded West Virginia pitching and took advantage of its defensive lapses, rolling to a 12–7 victory Wednesday at Charles Schwab Field Omaha to clinch their first CWS Finals berth in 19 years.

After combining for only three runs in the first six innings of their first two wins, Carolina (53–12–1) piled up nine through six to eliminate West Virginia (46–17), setting a program record for runs in a College World Series game.

Forbes said the looseness he wanted from his team showed up from the start.

“I thought our guys were ready,” Forbes said. “I felt like they were going after it. We talked about being in the moment, not counting outs, and just playing like a Little Leaguer and having a blast doing so. This is unbelievable. We’re at the College World Series.”

A Tar Heels team that had struggled of late with runners in scoring position was 8-of-10 on Wednesday.

Game 1 of the CWS Finals is at 8:07 p.m. Saturday against either No. 3 Georgia (53–13) or Oklahoma (41–22). The Sooners can advance with a win on Wednesday night, and the Bulldogs must win twice.

Get full transcript of UNC’s press conference here.

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Junior Gavin Gallaher, who was in Omaha when UNC came up short two years ago, said the magnitude of the moment had not fully landed even after the final out.

“I still think it really hasn’t set in yet,” Gallaher said. “After the game, shook hands and just walking around, looking up in the stands, looking at my family, just speechless, to be honest. So, to be back here, win our first three games, be in the national championship, it’s truly amazing.”

Shuffling near the top of the order clicked.

Hull, moving up one spot to second, went 4-for-5, coming a home run shy of a cycle, the sort of effort he says comes when he is in the “O-zone.” Gallaher, who moved down to third, was 2-for-9 in the CWS before going 4-for-5 with four RBI on Wednesday. Erik Paulsen moved up to fourth and went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

Forbes said that, after much debate, he made the switches at the insistence of assistant coach Scott Jackson.

“That’s why I changed the lineup,” Forbes said of Jackson’s urging. “I had already made the lineup [Tuesday] night. I had done all my prep. I told him to dig in more. He must have dug in more [Wednesday] morning.

“He said, ‘I really think we might want to consider this’ because of how good the starter and [Ian] Korn, who we thought we would see 1-2, have been against right-handed hitters. So we wanted to try to pressure them more,” Forbes said. “Eventually I just said, ‘All right, send me the dadgum lineup and I’m going to write whatever you guys tell me.’ So, it was a credit to Scott Jackson and Jesse Wierzbicki.”

Jake Schaffner led off the first and third innings with walks and scored each time.

Hull’s double off the right-center field wall scored him in the first. Hull stole third and scored on third baseman Tyrus Hull’s fielding error. Hull was not about to reveal much about the approach that helped UNC jump West Virginia early.

 “Scouting report’s a secret,” said Hull who is 16-for-26 with eight extra-base hits since the start of the Chapel Hill Super Regional. “But, as a lineup as a whole, we try to stick to the process of not letting our at-bats carry into each other. The first thing Coach told us in our pregame meeting out in the outfield was that we want our compete factor at the top. And that’s what we focused on, being default aggressive.”

In the third, Gallaher chased WVU starter Chansen Cole (2⅓ innings, 4 hits, 4 runs, 2 walks, 1 strikeout) with a single to score Schaffner. After Paulsen’s pop-up blew just fair down the left-field line for a single, Cooper Nicholson rocketed a two-run triple to right-center field.

UNC added three more in the fourth inning on Hull’s double down the left-field line and Gallaher’s single to center field. In the sixth inning, Carolina got RBI singles from Gallaher and Paulsen, and in the seventh, an RBI double from Carter French and an RBI single from Schaffner.

Forbes, who joked before the game about wanting one of those afternoons when his team “get 15 hits and score some runs,” saw his lineup finally break out on Omaha’s biggest stage.

“This offense has been pretty doggone good all year,” Forbes said. “They don’t get any credit. Every question’s about the pitching staff. But the common theme on this team is we’ve had different guys step up in big moments. There’s length to it.”

In his only inning, UNC starter Folger Boaz gave up a walk and two hits, including an RBI single to Matthew Graveline, before leaving two runners stranded after 28 pitches.

Freshman left-hander Jackson Rose (5–0; 4⅓ innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts) came on to start the second inning and cruised until hitting a batter and giving up a single and a walk to load the bases with one out in the sixth inning. On his first pitch, right-hander reliever Matthew Matthijs, in his first appearance in 12 days, induced an inning-ending double play on a lineout.

Rose steadied the game exactly the way Forbes hoped.

 “[He] came in, silenced them pretty quick,” Forbes said. “I thought he was outstanding.”

Rose, who had not pitched in 10 days, said he stays prepared for moments like that, no matter the role.

“All of us pitchers, we know it’s one game away from getting our number called and getting an opportunity,” Rose said. “It’s just going in every day, working as hard as I can, not letting the opportunity pass by.”

For Rose, a freshman pitching in Omaha with a veteran defense behind him that hasn’t committed an error in Omaha, the setting was surreal.

“It’s great being able to pitch out here as a freshman and be able to wear Carolina [blue], it’s like a dream, to be honest,” he said. “Playing with these guys in the field, if you get ahead, you don’t have to worry about the defensive side. It’s awesome.”

Matthijs gave way to Cameron Padgett in West Virginia’s five-run seventh inning after West Virginia got three hits and a walk, all with two outs, scoring twice. Padgett lasted two batters, both hitting RBI singles, before Caden Glauber came on. Another run scored on a passed ball, and he issued a walk before an inning-ending strikeout. Gavin Kelly hit a solo eighth-inning home run.

Glauber struck out three in 2⅓ innings, giving up three hits, one run and one walk as UNC moved to 28–0 when he pitches.

Even with the shaky seventh, Forbes had little interest in dwelling on it.

“Obviously, we had one bad inning, but I don’t care about that bad inning,” he said. “We’re playing in the national championship. And I’m excited for these guys.”

That chance arrives Saturday, and it comes with the benefit of two days off after Carolina won its bracket in three straight games. Forbes said that mattered as much as anything once the lead grew.

“That’s the goal,” he said. “You want those two days if you can get them. It doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to win. But when you have a pitching staff like ours, you can recover. We have a plan, and we’ll stay with that plan the next two days to be ready to play Saturday.”

Notes

— Macon Winslow, 0-for-6 in the first two CWS games, dropped from No. 4 to No. 8 in the batting order, and went 1-for-4.
— Gallaher joined Tim Federowicz (2006 against Oregon State) as the only UNC players with four hits and four RBI in a CWS game.
— Schaffner, Hull and Gallaher all stole bases, ending a streak of nine consecutive CWS games for UNC without a steal. The previous steal was by Chaz Frank in the first inning against N.C. State on June 20, 2013.
— Nicholson leads the NCAA tournament with three triples.
— Rose’s 58 pitches were his fourth-most this season.
— UNC’s previous high run total in the CWS was 11 against Southern Miss on June 16, 2009.
— Carolina is 3–0 at the CWS for the first time since winning its first four in 2006. After beating Oregon State in the CWS Finals opener 4–3, the Beavers won the title with wins of 11–7 and 3–2.
— Carolina last made the CWS Finals in 2007, when Oregon State swept the Tar Heels 11–4 and 9–3.
— UNC is 11–2 all-time against West Virginia, including 4–0 in the NCAA tournament.
— Carolina is 133–86 all-time in the NCAA tournament, including 24–14 under Forbes.|
— The Tar Heels are 8–8 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
— UNC has outscored opponents 77–26 in the first inning and is 31–2 when it scores in the first inning. It’s 43–0 when leading after six innings, 46–0 when leading after seven and 48–0 when leading after eight.

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No. 4 UNC 12, No. 9 West Virginia 7

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College World Series

At Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Neb.
Bracket 1
No. 5-seed and No. 4-ranked North Carolina (52–12–1), No. 16-seed and No. 9-ranked West Virginia (47–16; eliminated), Troy (39–32; eliminated) and No. 23-ranked Ole Miss (41–23; eliminated)
Bracket 2
No. 3-seed and No. 3-ranked Georgia (53–13), Oklahoma (41–22) and No. 7-seed, No. 6-seed and No. 6-ranked Texas (46–15; eliminated), No. 6-seed and No. 6-ranked Texas (46–16; eliminated) and No. 16-ranked Alabama (42–21; eliminated)
Pool play
All listed times are ET
June 12 results
West Virginia 7, Troy 5
North Carolina 6, Ole Miss 2
June 13 results
Oklahoma 9, Alabama 0
Georgia 7, Texas 1
June 14 results
Troy 12, Ole Miss 8; Ole Miss eliminated
North Carolina 5, West Virginia 2
June 15 results
Texas 14, Alabama 2; Alabama eliminated
Oklahoma 4, Georgia 3
Tuesday’s results
West Virginia 12, Troy 0; Troy eliminated
Georgia 2, Texas 0; Texas eliminated
Wednesday’s games
North Carolina 12, West Virginia 7; West Virginia eliminated
Oklahoma vs. Georgia, 7:07 p.m., ESPN
Thursday’s games
Oklahoma vs. Georgia (if Georgia wins Wednesday), 7:07, ESPN
CWS Finals
(Best-of-3 series)
North Carolina vs. Oklahoma or Georgia
Game 1: Saturday, 8:07 p.m., ESPN
Game 2: Sunday, 1:37 p.m., ABC
Game 3: Monday (if needed), 8:07 p.m., ESPN

Times in brackets are Central Time, with games starting 7 minutes after the listed times.

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Date(s)	Day/ month	Times/ scores	Opponent (current rank)	Record/ TV *
	February
13–14	Fri., Sat.	W, 9–4; W, 12–2 (7); W, 4–3 (11)	vs. Indiana	3–0
17	Tuesday	W, 10–0 (7)	vs. Richmond	4–0
18	Wednesday	W, 5–3	vs. Longwood	5–0
20–22	Fri.-Sun	W, 10–0 (8); L, 10–3; T, 3–3	vs. East Carolina	6–1–1
24	Tuesday	W, 9–1	vs. N.C. A&T	7–1–1
25	Wednesday	W, 13–3 (7)	vs. VCU	8–1–1
27–28	Fri., Sat.	W, 16–3 (7); W, 12–2 (7)	vs. Le Moyne	10–1–1
	March
1	Sunday	W, 21–1 (7)	vs. Le Moyne	11–1–1
3	Tuesday	W, 5–1	vs. Elon	12–1–1
6–7	Fri., Sat	L, 13–3 (7); L, 9–2; W, 8–7 (12)	vs. Virginia	13–3–1, 1–2 ACC
10	Tuesday	W, 13–3 (7)	vs. Bucknell	14–3–1
13–15	Fri.-Sun.	W, 8–1; W, 6–2; W, 10–2	at California	17–3–1, 4–2
18	Wednesday	W, 8–2	vs. UNCG	18–3–1
20–22	Fri.–Sun.	W, 11–1 (8); L, 2–0; W, 7–6	vs. Louisville	20–4–1, 6–3
24	Tuesday	W, 9–1	vs. South Carolina in Charlotte	21–4–1
28, 29	Sat., Sun	W, 6–5; W, 13–7; W, 15–10	at Notre Dame	24–4–1, 9–3
31	Tuesday	W, 5–4 (14)	vs. Campbell	25–4–1
	April
2–4	Thur.-Sat.	L, 6–1; W, 5–2; W, 8–7	vs. Boston College	27–5–1, 11–4
7	Tuesday	W, 8–4	vs. Charlotte	28–5–1
10–12	Fri.–Sun.	L, 9–5; W, 6–4 (14); W, 12–5	at Clemson	30–6–1, 13–5
14	Tuesday	W, 14–5	vs. UNCW	31–6–1
17–19	Fri.-Sun.	W, 5–2; W, 14–4 (8); L, 5–2	vs. No. 2 Georgia Tech	33–7–1, 15–6
21	Tuesday	W, 9–2	vs. High Point	34–7–1
23–25	Thur.–Sat.	W, 3–1; L, 3–1; W, 22–5 (7)	at Duke	36–8–1, 17–7
28	Tuesday	L, 12–2	vs. Coastal Carolina	36–9–1
	May
3	Sunday	W, 13–0 (7) (non-conference game)	vs. Duke	37–9–1
8–10	Fri.-Sun.	W, 4–1; W, 12–2 (8); W, 7–3	vs. Pittsburgh	40–9–1, 20–7
12	Tuesday	W, 13–7	at UNCW	41–9–1
14–16	Thur.-Sat.	W, 9–4; W, 17–7 (8); L, 7–2	at N.C. State	43–10–1, 22–8
		ACC tournament	Charlotte
22	Friday	W, 10–4	Quarterfinal vs. Virginia Tech	44–10–1
23	Saturday	W, 13–5	Semifinal vs. Pittsburgh	45–10–1
24	Sunday	L, 13–6	Championship vs. No. 2 Ga. Tech	45–11–1
		NCAA tournament
		Chapel Hill Regional
29	Friday	W, 8–0	VCU	46–11–1
30–31	Sat.–Sun.	W, 7–5, W, 9–3	East Carolina	48–11–1
	June
		Chapel Hill Super Regionals
5–7	Fri.–Sun.	L, 9–5, W, 4–0, W, 4–3	Southern Cal	50–12–1
		College World Series	Omaha, Neb.
12	Friday	W, 6–2	No. 18 Ole Miss	51–12–1
14	Sunday	W, 5–2	No. 9 West Virginia	52–12–1
17	Wednesday	W, 12–7	No. 9 West Virginia	53–12–1
20–22	Sat.-Mon	8:07, 1:37, 8:07 (if needed)	CWS Finals vs. Oklahoma or No. 3 Georgia	ESPN, ABC, ESPN

Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics