University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Carolina's Memorable Regional History
May 30, 2012 | Baseball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
May 30, 2012
By Adam Lucas
Carolina has hosted five NCAA Tournament regionals in the past six years, and the games have included some of the best moments in Tar Heel baseball history. As momentum builds towards Friday's UNC regional opener against Cornell (tickets are available), a quick refresher on the signature plays and players that have made recent Chapel Hill regionals so enjoyable.
2006: Carolina, 2 Winthrop, 3 UNC-Wilmington, 4 Maine
Key game: Carolina 15, Maine 7 in the regional opener
Everyone in Chapel Hill was giddy that the Tar Heels were hosting a regional for the first time since 1983. The Carolina Club hosted a pregame party. A festive atmosphere surrounded the ballpark.
And the first few innings were very, very tense. The Tar Heels had gone 0-2 in the ACC Tournament in Jacksonville the previous week, and Boshamer Stadium got a little gloomy when the unheralded Black Bears grabbed a 6-4 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth. But Jay Cox ignited a rally that saw the Tar Heels score 10 runs over the next two innings on the way to a 15-7 win.
Cox went on to win the regional MVP award, as Carolina advanced to a super-regional appearance at Alabama.
2007: Carolina, 2 ECU, 3 Western Carolina, 4 Jacksonville
Key game: Carolina 11, ECU 10 in the Saturday winner's bracket game
At rowdy Boshamer Stadium--thanks to big presale purchases by UNC fans, general public tickets were available for only minutes before the event was sold out--the Tar Heels got a walk-off win courtesy of a ninth inning single from freshman Dustin Ackley that capped a three-run rally. The ensuing celebration was so raucous that Rob Wooten (who was dominant in a shutout inning of relief, as the Tar Heel bullpen picked up starter Alex White after an uncharacteristic start) broke a tooth and Reid Fronk required five stitches in his head after all the hysteria.
The back-and-forth battle between the hard-hitting Pirates and Tar Heels included 21 runs, 31 hits, 5 errors and two ejections.
Side note: the '07 regional was the only time Mike Fox has used his ace in the Friday game of a home regional. Fourth-seeded Jacksonville was considered a dangerous opponent, and Robert Woodard shut them out 6-0 on Friday night.
The Tar Heels announced Wednesday morning that lefty Hobbs Johnson will start against Cornell this Friday. A look at Carolina's prior regional pitching decisions can be found here.
2008: Carolina, 2 UNC-Wilmington, 3 Elon, 4 Mount St. Mary's
Key game: Carolina 7, UNC-Wilmington 3 in the regional final
The Seahawks had used an incredible ninth-inning rally to reach the final, scoring 11 times in the final inning to topple Elon, 15-11. Virtually everyone in Cary--where the regional was held while Boshamer was being renovated--was already preparing for an Elon-Carolina matchup in the final when UNC-Wilmington rewrote the script.
The Seahawks rode their momentum to a 1-0 fifth-inning lead, but Mark Fleury smacked a three-run home run to give Carolina the lead, and Wooten closed the game with a pair of strikeouts to seal the win. Tim Fedroff went an incredible 9-for-11 during the regional, including two RBI against Wilmington.
2009: Carolina, 2 Coastal Carolina, 3 Kansas, 4 Dartmouth
Key game: Carolina 14, Coastal Carolina 5 in Saturday's winner's bracket game
The Tar Heels dominated this regional, trailing for exactly two outs the entire weekend. That came on Saturday, when the Chanticleers held a brief 3-2 lead in the third. That's when Carolina exploded for four runs and never looked back, as Levi Michael and Dustin Ackley each had four hits. Colin Bates was the pitching story, limiting a talented Coastal team to only one hit over 3.1 innings of relief.
Ackley was the regional MVP after going 10-for-14 in three games with three doubles, a home run and five RBI--in other words, a fairly typical Ackley performance.
2011: Carolina, 2 Florida International, 3 James Madison, 4 Maine
Key game: Carolina 4, Maine 0 in the opener
In an emotional weekend that saw the Tar Heels playing without Mike Fox, who was dealing with the death of his mother, Carolina outscored the opposition 27-3. The impressive three-game sweep began with a stellar performance from freshman Kent Emanuel in the opener, as he went eight shutout innings and gave up just seven hits, with only one Black Bear runner reaching third base.
Emanuel's quiet assessment of his performance: "I definitely didn't have my best stuff." He proved it later in June, when he shut out Texas in the College World Series in one of the best pitching performances in Tar Heel history. A rowdy Boshamer crowd combined with Emanuel to create a hostile environment for Maine. "It's tough to simulate this atmosphere for us," Maine head coach Steve Trimper said. The adjustment showed, as the Tar Heels scored four quick first-inning runs, capped by a three-run homer from Jacob Stallings. The early offense and the freshman's quality outing lifted a Carolina team playing without Mike Fox, who was attending to his mother, Barbara. The head coach missed all three games of the regional, and after she passed away Saturday, the Tar Heels wore pink socks in her honor in Sunday's regional championship win over James Madison.
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 and Facebook.
