University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Coast To Coast Collision
June 10, 2011 | Baseball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
June 10, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Carolina opens play today in the NCAA super regional (limited tickets are still available) against a West Coast team, Stanford, that doesn't fit the typical stereotype of a West Coast club.
At its most basic, college baseball is divided into two distinct styles. There's the East Coast philosophy, which encompasses most of the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference. That has traditionally been a grip it-and-rip it approach, sitting back and waiting for the three-run home run and always on the lookout for the big inning.
When the Tar Heels met Cal State Fullerton and Oregon State in the 2006 College World Series, the UNC program had seen just one West Coast team in the previous three seasons. The differences were immediately obvious and a little jarring. Both the Titans and Beavers tried to control the pace of the game and executed the tiny details of the game flawlessly. Instead of three runs in an inning, they played for one. Much of that approach is rooted in the teachings of Hall of Fame coach Wally Kincaid, whose coaching tree includes Oregon's George Horton (who also spent a decade at Fullerton) and Long Beach State's Dave Snow.
This year, NCAA-mandated changes in bat technology have brought the two coasts closer together in offensive philosophy. In 2011, even formerly power-laden SEC clubs are now bunting up and down their lineup, and big innings are usually created by errors and walks instead of a couple of doubles and a home run. But even with the small ball approach spreading nationwide, eight of the top 11 teams in sacrifice bunts still play west of the Mississippi River.
"Traditionally, the West Coast teams were ahead of the curve with manufacturing offense, putting pressure on you and execution," says Aaron Fitt of Baseball America, who has lived on both the East Coast and the West Coast while overseeing the magazine's college baseball coverage. "Typically, they wouldn't have the power that you see in the SEC and ACC."
That style tends to create close games, and in 2006 Carolina edged Fullerton by a total of three runs in two games, then dropped 11-7 and 3-2 decisions to Oregon State.
That began a stretch of eight out of nine losses to West Coast teams during the 2006-09 seasons. There were times that the slower tempo seemed to frustrate the Tar Heels.
"Some West Coast teams will try to slow the game down," says senior Ben Bunting. "They're going to take a long time getting the signs, and things will move more slowly."
This year's Tar Heels got some early exposure to that style, going on the road in the first weekend of the season and defeating the California trio of Fullerton, Southern Cal and Cal Poly. Even in conference play, some opponents--notably Miami--played at a slower tempo. That's experience that you might think would be helpful against Pac-10 representative Stanford...except the Cardinal doesn't fit the stereotype of a West Coast club.
They've put down 27 sacrifice bunts, a smaller total than Carolina's 31. They've taken just 154 walks, while the Tar Heels are among the national leaders with 331 free passes. Looking at the two squads on paper, without team identification, you'd be hard-pressed to identify which one had to change three time zones to participate in this weekend's super regional.
"The interesting thing about Stanford is that they don't fit into the traditional West Coast mold," says Fitt, who saw the Cardinal in person last weekend at the Fullerton Regional. "They're more of an ACC or SEC-style program. They've had power there and they produce a lot of pro talent. They're unusual on the West Coast."
Indeed, Stanford has produced 87 major league players and had at least one major leaguer in each of the past 54 seasons. That's a tradition that predates even the relatively ancient--by college baseball standards--West Coast strategies. More recently, Stanford has played in eight super-regionals since 1999, winning seven of them.
That's postseason success that feels familiar in Chapel Hill, where the Tar Heels have made four trips to the College World Series in the past five seasons. In fact, it might be that the 2,788 miles separating the two campuses are the biggest divergence between two programs that may find more similarities than differences when Friday's first pitch is thrown at 3 p.m.
"This year especially, outs and runs are precious," Fitt says. "You have to do whatever you can to get ahead, and you're going to see that all over the country this weekend."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
