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CHAPEL HILL — Alberto Osuna is fully healthy and having a blast. The senior slugger never felt quite right while battling a left hamate injury last season, and his power numbers suffered. He got healthy and fitter in the offseason, and the results have been impressive.
CHAPEL HILL — No. 17 North Carolina is loaded with young pitching talent, but none as young as freshman Jason DeCaro. The 17-year-old right-hander has earned a spot in the weekend rotation after showing poise and an impressive four-pitch mix in two mid-week starts.
CHAPEL HILL — Vance Honeycutt’s likely last season at Carolina couldn’t have started much better, making history and helping the Tar Heels get off to an impressive start. The third home run of the season for the talented junior center fielder, a 365-foot grand slam that just made it over the right-field fence in the fourth inning, sparked No. 15 UNC to an 8–7 victory over Elon on a cool Tuesday evening at Boshamer Stadium.
CHAPEL HILL — The newcomers immediately made a difference for No. 15 North Carolina — from the freshman battery to two veteran position players — while the returnees flexed their offensive muscles in an impressive Opening Day victory.
How good are No. 15 North Carolina’s young pitchers? It won’t take long to get an idea. With Jake Knapp, originally expected to be the ace, out for the season, fourth-year UNC coach Scott Forbes will open the season at 4 p.m. Friday against Wagner with Folger Boaz on the mound, the first of two freshmen who will sandwich senior right-hander Ben Peterson as starters for the opening weekend.
CHAPEL HILL — Playing in a baseball conference stacked with ranked teams requires stacking talent to stay competitive, and fourth-year North Carolina coach Scott Forbes brought in an impressive collection of newcomers to do that.
After recruiting an outstanding transfer and freshman class, Coach Scott Forbes’ fourth North Carolina team will face a challenging schedule. The schedule, announced Thursday, includes 44 games against teams that finished in the top 65 of the RPI last season and 25 teams that made the NCAA tournament.
Junior third baseman/outfielder Mac Horvath became the highest Carolina draft pick in three years when the Baltimore Orioles selected him in the second round of the Major League Baseball Draft on Sunday night in Seattle as the 53rd overall pick.
If you enjoy watching Carolina win a national championship, beat Duke and N.C. State, Armando Bacot make history and Drake Maye work his magic, set your DVR for Carolina takeover day Saturday on the ACC Network. Each conference school has one takeover day as the network replays the biggest victories aired on ESPN channels during the last school year during “ACC Network School Takeover.” It began Saturday with Wake Forest and ends July 15 with Boston College.
The inexplicable absence of Carolina junior Mac Horvath from the All-ACC first team continues to look like a massive injustice as more postseason awards roll out. On Thursday, Horvath made the Perfect Game All-America first team in one of the three outfield spots three days after the American Baseball Coaches Association named him to the All-Atlantic Region First Team.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A year after working out of the losers’ bracket to win the Chapel Hill Regional, North Carolina couldn’t replicate that magic but made things interesting. UNC rallied from a three-run eighth-inning deficit after No. 2 seed Iowa seized control with Brennen Dorighi’s three-run homer in the fifth inning. The Hawkeyes earned their second victory over UNC in the Terre Haute Regional, ousting the Tar Heels with a 6–5 13-inning victory Sunday afternoon at Bob Warn Field.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Those homer-stealing Tar Heels keep snagging the spotlight. When redshirt freshman right fielder Casey Cook reached his arm over the wall and stole a two-run home run from Wright State’s Julian Greenwell in the fifth inning of UNC’s 5–0 Saturday victory in the Terre Haute Regional, it earned him the No. 9 play on the ESPN “SportsCenter” Top 10 Plays segment.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Swamp time was the right time for slugger Mac Horvath and North Carolina. Before the game, he had the words “SWAMP TIME!” written on the tape that was around his left arm, and “Donkey” — as his teammates call him — proceeded to deliver a key three-run homer in the Tar Heels’ 5–0 victory Saturday over Wright State at Bob Warn Field to stay alive in the Terre Haute Regional.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A microcosm of why Carolina has struggled at times this season played out in the Tar Heels’ NCAA tournament opener, with the lack of length from starting pitchers and hits with runners in scoring position. Combining those with dominant pitching from Iowa right-hander Marcus Morgan (5–1) and struggles at the top of the Tar Heels’ order dumped them into the losers’ bracket of the Terre Haute Regional but not before making some ninth-inning noise.
CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina’s pitching staff has thrown the Tar Heels for a loop many times this season, whether it be short outings from starters or early-season struggles from relievers. After dealing with little stability in the starting rotation most of the season, UNC coach Scott Forbes enters the NCAA tournament confident with the momentum from only two pitchers he knows will start this weekend and a bullpen that has been solid of late.
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