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At last, Carolina has broken through to serve the program’s first women’s tennis national championship.
The No. 1-ranked Tar Heels avenged their only loss on Saturday with a 4–1 victory over No. 3 N.C. State at the USTA national campus in Orlando, Fla., in their sixth Final Four appearance. Singles wins by senior Elizabeth Scotty and sophomore Carson Tanguilig within a minute of each other clinched the title.
Carolina will not only avoid being in the same ACC tournament round-robin pool as No. 1 Wake Forest, but the Tar Heels also wouldn’t have to face the Deacons until the championship game. That was the good news for the Tar Heels after they lost their fourth consecutive game, and Clemson finished off a three-game sweep of their regular-season-ending series on Saturday.
Carolina finally pitched well throughout a game against No. 7 Clemson, but the Tar Heels couldn’t deal with versatile Tigers star Caden Grice. Grice, who usually plays first base, beat UNC from the mound and the plate as the Tigers finished off a sweep of the regular-season-ending three-game series with a 3–1 victory Saturday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium for their 12th consecutive victory.
No. 1 North Carolina and No. 3 N.C. State clash in women’s tennis for a third time this season on Saturday in Orlando, Fla., with the national championship on the line. The match at the USTA Tennis Campus is set for 5:30 p.m. and will air on the Tennis Channel. It’s the first time since 2014 that UNC has made the NCAA championship game. Carolina has won the last four ITA indoor titles and gets a chance to finally break through in the NCAA tournament.
Carolina battled a red-hot Clemson team well on Friday night, but lost a heartbreaker in the ninth inning. After the Tar Heels tied it in the top of the ninth, Blake Wright ended the game with an RBI single to right with two outs in the bottom of the inning to give No. 7 Clemson a 5–4 victory Friday for the series win and the Tigers’ 11th consecutive win.
Without star center fielder Vance Honeycutt and a rough outing for right-hander Max Carlson, it was a long night in Clemson for North Carolina. The No. 7 Tigers scored six runs of Carlson in the first two innings and rolled to a 14–7 victory Thursday over the Tar Heels at Doug Kingsmore Stadium for their 10th consecutive victory. UNC didn’t go down quietly, though, scoring four runs and getting six of its 15 hits in the ninth inning.
CHAPEL HILL — Denver came to Dorrance Field undefeated and barely challenged all season, but the reigning women’s lacrosse national champion Carolina didn’t make it easy for the Pioneers. The Pioneers’ defense, led by All-American defender Sam Thacker, was too much for the Tar Heels, who went scoreless for the final 35:22 of the game in Denver’s 5–4 victory in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals Thursday at Dorrance Field.
The Carolina women’s soccer program has produced some of the best players in the United States, so why not form a United States team made up mostly of former Tar Heels? That will happen June 1–4 at the WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary for a 32-team, seven-on-seven $1 million winner-take-all event called The Soccer Tournament, put on by TBT Enterprises, the same company that has run The Basketball Tournament annually in the summer since 2014.
There were rumors two weeks ago that Caleb Love would decommit from Michigan and the guard shot them down on Twitter. Now, multiple reports Wednesday indicate that he is indeed moving on. Love, who originally committed to Michigan on April 7, will look for another school, according to On3.com and 247 Sports, and Fox Sports is reporting that he didn’t have the needed academic credits to transfer.
Entering North Carolina’s big regular-season-ending three-game series at No. 7 Clemson, the Tar Heels still have a shot at winning the ACC Coastal Division title while still being projected as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels (33–18, 14–11 ACC) would need to sweep the Tigers (36–17, 17–10) and get help to win the division.
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