University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Best Of The Blatt
June 16, 2011 | Baseball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
June 16, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Carolina begins a new era of College World Series play on Saturday when the Tar Heels open TD Ameritrade Park against Vanderbilt. But before we inaugurate the new digs, we wanted to take a look back at Carolina's recent College World Series history.
The Tar Heels have played an incredible 21 games in Omaha since 2006. We convened a blue-ribbon panel of four individuals who were there for every single one of those games. Well, let's rephrase that. Three of them are blue-ribbon quality, and the fourth is me. The group includes:
Joe Bray: photographed every Carolina College World Series game since 2006.
John Martin: served as Carolina's sports information director for all College World Series games from 2006-09.
Jones Angell: had the play-by-play call on the Tar Heel Sports Network for all 21 games.
Adam Lucas: drank a lot of milkshakes at Zesto from 2006-09.
These four Diamond Heels aficionados were asked to rank their five favorite Carolina games in Omaha. We tabulated the votes and awarded five points for a first-place vote, four points for a second-place vote, and so on down the rankings. I hope you have as much fun reliving them as we did:
Game #5: June 21, 2007: Carolina 7, Rice 4
 Adam Warren pitched the Tar Heels over Rice for a second time in 2007.  |
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This is the game when I realized how good Adam Warren was. That might seem silly now, since he's currently a breath away from starting for the New York Yankees. But back in the summer of 2007, we knew him more as a midweek starter than a big-game starter. Robert Woodard had beaten Rice--and Rice was very good, maybe the best overall team in the nation in 2007--the day before, and that seemed like a nice capstone to the year.
Warren, in his first career postseason start, wouldn't let it be the end. He threw six solid innings and was joined by Kyle Seager, who had a huge at-bat against Owls lefty Cole St. Clair, in showing what was to come for some of the younger Tar Heel players.
Jones Angell: Most people aren't going to put this one, but it was such an unexpected great start from Warren.
Game #4: June 21, 2006: Carolina 6, Cal State Fullerton 5
This is where I diverged from the pollsters, as I had Chad Flack's 2008 home run against Fresno State in this spot. Our voters make a solid case, though.
 Jay Cox had two homers and a terrific catch in the second matchup with Fullerton. |
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Jones Angell: For some reason I can still remember so many of the important plays from this game...Jay Cox's two home runs, FedEx's homer, Cox's catch on the track, getting them out at home on the attempted squeeze play.
Joe Bray: Jay Cox's two home runs. His amazing catch against the wall in left with one out in the ninth. Knowing you were in the championship series. Little Robbie. Andrew Miller coming on in relief for Carignan with two outs in the ninth and getting a grounder to second. Jay Cox alone in the locker room sitting on a stool after the game with a totally exhausted, "what did I just do?" look on his face.
John Martin: Winning this game meant that the Tar Heels would play just once in a five-day stretch in Omaha prior to the Championship Series. Josh Horton did a live interview on the SportsCenter set after the game with Linda Cohn and Harold Reynolds, I believe, and he was fantastic. The coaches and players could not have done a better job handling all the media requests and representing Carolina on the biggest stage of the sport over the 2006-09 run.
Game #3: June 20, 2008: Carolina 7, LSU 3
Again, this was a case of the national sense being that little old Carolina should be happy to be on the field with big, bad LSU. The Tigers had thousands of fans there, and even the locals rooted for them. When I went in the Carolina dugout before the game, several of the players were talking about how the LSU fans had lined the sidewalk and chanted, "Tiger Bait!" at the Tar Heels when they got off the bus at Rosenblatt.
 The grand slam by Federowicz set off an emotional celebration. |
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Sitting in the radio booth and watching Tim Federowicz's ninth-inning grand slam fly into the stands while Jones called it was surreal. A moment just as good came the next morning, when the Little Leaguer who caught the ball brought it to the team hotel to give it back to Federowicz. They both stood there in the lobby of the hotel while SportsCenter played the highlight of the homer, both in awe of the role they'd played in a moment that was now being replayed for the entire country.
John Martin: The emotion in the dugout set off by FedEx's home run was a great scene that was probably only rivaled by Flack's walk-off in Tuscaloosa in 2006.
Joe Bray: The game was twice interrupted by rain delays. In the locker room during the second rain delay, Garrett Gore did his best impersonation of Greg Gatz walking into a disco...a "you had to be there moment" and if you were you had tears in your eyes from laughing so much. Mark Fleury getting about 100 pieces of chewing gum in his mouth at the same time during the same rain delay. Chase Jones doing his "upside down man" routine during the first rain delay. Intentionally walking Tim Fedroff to get to FedEx. The wry smile on Coach Fox's face as Timmy rounded third.
Game #2: June 18, 2006: UNC 2, Clemson 0
It's pretty simple--this is the Robert Woodard game. It is, given the situation and the opponent, the best Carolina pitching performance I have ever seen.
 Woodard threw a gem against Clemson in 2006. |
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Because of a quirk in the ACC schedule, Carolina and Clemson hadn't played during the regular season or the ACC Tournament, and you got the sense the Tigers--a very, very good team in 2006--felt like the Tar Heels weren't quite on their level. That was before Woodard went out and dominated them for nine innings.
Jones Angell: The best pitching performance in Carolina history.
Joe Bray: It was the only time I've ever felt totally comfortable with just a two-run lead that early in a game...Woody was just that sharp and totally in control of the game. He was an absolute warrior on the mound that day.
Game #1: June 16, 2006: Carolina 7, Cal State Fullerton 5 (13 innings)
This game was very nearly a consensus number-one. What I remember most about it was that it was incredibly long--the second-longest game in College World Series history to that point--but you never got the sense that it was dragging, just that there was an incredible tension.
To this day, whenever the fake-to-third-throw-to-first play works, I think of Matt Danford, who pulled it off in the 11th inning--a frame when Fullerton somehow had five men reach base without scoring--to kill a big Titans rally. This was also the year that Cal State Fullerton kept a toilet in their dugout to "flush" the bad plays--seriously, that's what they said--which, as you can imagine, ESPN loved. That made it especially sweet to beat them and, eventually, send them home.
I vividly remember standing in the Rosenblatt Stadium parking lot with Joe Bray. He had just walked across the street to get a triple Kong Burger and had eaten the whole thing despite it being after midnight. Once the game was over, everyone simultaneously realized how hungry, exhausted and excited they were.
Joe Bray: The first-ever CWS game for myself and most of our people there. We proved we could play with the "big boys" on a national stage as we were obviously not fazed by the setting. The stress of being the away team in an extra-inning game.
John Martin: This first game exceeded all expectations. The entire experience of the College World Series was new to just about everyone involved with the program, and the game, the atmosphere, the crowd were phenomenal. I obviously had no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the game, but I remember feeling the nerves as this one crept into the late innings.
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.
