University of North Carolina Athletics
GoHeels Exclusive: Where The Tar Heels Play
June 10, 2018 | Baseball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
From almost every direction, they came charging, some with water bottles in hand, ready to celebrate just as Mike Fox encouraged them to.
Just six days earlier, after North Carolina clinched the Chapel Hill Regional with its second win over Houston in as many days, the Tar Heels chose not to commemorate the victory with a dogpile. And Fox was OK with that. But in the locker room, he ensured his players celebrated. Such moments, he told them, can be fleeting.
So on Saturday, when Brooks Wilson's towering fly ball somehow fell harmlessly into Brandon Riley's glove on the center-field warning track, Fox's players heeded his words.
It began with Josh Hiatt and Brandon Martorano. The pitcher and catcher, seemingly in disbelief, started jumping and hugging each other. And before long, their teammates swarmed them, sending them to the bottom of a Carolina Blue pile near the Boshamer Stadium pitcher's mound.
In the distance, the scoreboard read 7-5 in favor of UNC over Stetson. A motion graphic flashed across the adjacent video board. It stated: "Omaha Bound!"
Fox watched all this from in front of the third-base dugout. Five years had passed since he'd seen anything like it. So when tasked with putting his thoughts into words during his postgame press conference, he joked about trying to hold back tears.
"I'm just unbelievably happy for these kids," he said. "They'll get to experience something that's going to be a lifetime memory for them. Our coaching staff, trainers, equipment manager and operations people, they've all been there, but none of these kids have. They have no idea what they're getting ready to experience."
But Fox certainly does.
As a player, he was a second baseman on the Tar Heel team that reached the College World Series in 1978. He returned to UNC as the head coach before the 1999 season. And from 2006-13, Carolina made six trips to Omaha. That included four straight from 2006-09.
Omaha became "where the Tar Heels play." And that expectation, that sense of attachment to the mecca of college baseball, made being away from there since 2013 even more difficult.
UNC went 1-2 as the No. 3 seed in the 2014 Gainesville Regional. In 2015 and 2016, Carolina missed the NCAA Tournament. Then came last season, when the Tar Heels, the No. 2 national seed, didn't advance out of their regional.
In Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture," he wrote, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." Fox often references that when discussing the last few seasons. Because his players didn't get what they wanted, they became hardened by their experiences. They desired a different fate.
Realizing that goal, Zack Gahagan said, required changes in the clubhouse.
"We're very close, and everyone seems to pick each other up," he said. "It starts in the fall, and it's a lot of hard work and a lot of character, too. The guys coach brings in, they're all good kids, and we mesh well together.Â
"My first few years, we didn't have that. And that's what we wanted to change. We wanted to change the culture, and we were able to do that."
Fox agreed.
"Is there anything different? Yeah, I've got a whole group of different in there," he said. "I'm just tickled to death for them. I'm so happy for this group. They've given us all we asked of them since August.
"Baseball is a long journey, and we want to make it longer. And this team is really easy to coach. They love to practice, love to be down here. They've made it special. This is what makes coaching special."
And of the seven teams Fox has coached to Omaha, this one's path might be most unique.
The Tar Heels started the season 7-7. During that stretch, ace Gianluca Dalatri suffered an injury that sidelined him for 12 weeks. A few other players also sustained injuries along the way. Still, UNC won 30 of its last 40 regular-season games and earned the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament thanks to a 22-8 conference record.
The other six teams to reach Omaha under Fox also featured more stars who Carolina fans knew. Chad Flack, Andrew Miller, Dustin Ackley, Alex White, Kent Emanuel and Colin Moran are just a few who played integral roles on those clubs. This year, Michael Busch and Kyle Datres lead the Tar Heels offensively. Dalatri has also shown he can be a difference-maker.
But this team's greatest strength is its depth. And that was on display in both super regional games against an unrelenting Stetson squad.
On the mound, Cooper Criswell, a junior college transfer, started Friday's game, and he outdueled Logan Gilbert, the No. 14 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft. UNC used five different pitchers out of the bullpen across both games. Among them was freshman Caden O'Brien, who allowed one run (unearned) across three innings. He now boasts a 2.14 ERA in 42 innings this season.
Offensively, Busch and Cody Roberts each homered Friday, driving in five of Carolina's seven runs. But Saturday, five players finished with multi-hit games, all seven runs were scored by different players, five Tar Heels tallied an RBI and every player in the field recorded a hit.
"I think there's a different superstar every game, and that's why we've gotten to this point," Datres said. "It hasn't been one guy. It's been one through nine. It doesn't really matter who is coming up to the plate in a big situation, I feel like, one through nine, that guy can get it done for us. I think that's what makes us dangerous because you can't really lock in on one guy in our lineup.
"We're coming together at the right time right now, and that's what you need from a ball club. Baseball is all about momentum, and we've come together and put a lot of good swings on balls here lately."
Despite that and everything UNC accomplished before the NCAA Tournament, some people still questioned Carolina's status as the No. 6 national seed. Specifically, one TV analyst said there was "not enough meat" on the team's postseason resume.
That's all the extra motivation this team needed.
As Sunday's celebration shifted from the pitcher's mound to left field, the team prepared to take a photo that will line the Boshamer Stadium hallways along with similar photos of Omaha-bound teams. But just before then, Dallas Tessar sprinted to the dugout.
He returned just seconds later. And in his hand he carried a white T-shirt with black lettering. It, like several others designed just before last weekend's regional, read "not enough meat."
If the Tar Heels weren't embracing the moment already, they were now.
"This is a special group," Fox said. "This is one of the more special teams I've been able to coach here. There's just something about them. You've got be a little good and you've got to be a little lucky to get to this point. To say we're excited about going to Omaha is probably the biggest understatement."
