University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Lucas: 2007 A Different Meeting
June 14, 2018 | Baseball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Often lumped together with 2006, the 2007 championship series was actually very different.
By Adam Lucas
Over the next 48 hours, you'll hear the 2006 and 2007 matchups between Carolina and Oregon State lumped together. That's a deceiving way to look at the two series, which are actually very different.
As mentioned yesterday, 2006 was magic. Everything was new, and every single day in Omaha was gravy.
But 2007 was about business. The end of the 2006 season had toughened the players who returned in 2007—and there were many—and they wanted to make it back to the College World Series. Oregon State struggled for most of the season and barely scraped into the NCAA Tournament field. The Tar Heels were dominant, earning the right to host both a regional and a super-regional before construction work began at Boshamer Stadium almost as soon as the final out was made in Game 3 of the epic super-regional win over longtime nemesis South Carolina.
The postseason, though, was difficult. Carolina needed heart-pounding comebacks in the regional against East Carolina and Western Carolina, and then had to win the winner-take-all third game against the Gamecocks.
In Omaha, the trend continued. A win over Mississippi State began play at Rosenblatt Stadium, but then powerful Rice thumped the Heels, 14-4. Carolina then proceeded to win games on three straight days, including back-to-back wins over the Owls, to earn a spot in the finals against the Beavers, who had suddenly caught fire in the postseason and were steamrolling opponents. Even the fact that they were making some off-field headlines, as they will again in 2018, didn't seem to distract them.
"We would never have admitted it, but our tanks were running low," says Chad Flack. "Every game in Omaha was a ton of fun but it is also stressful. Every pitch and at-bat is magnified to a whole new level and when you have to go through the loser's bracket, it's that much harder."
Especially for the returnees, seeing that familiar orange and black jersey on the opposite side in the championship series rekindled memories of 2006. There were several Tar Heels who were not big fans of the Beavers' deliberate style of play or the way they'd mugged for the media.
Oregon State was hot, yes, but Carolina had been one of the nation's best teams since February. Walking out of Rosenblatt Stadium after the pre-series press conference on the day off, there was a genuine sense that the Tar Heels were about to exact some revenge.
And perhaps that was a little too much of the focus. To put it in some present-day perspective, imagine that the 2017 basketball redemption tour had been capped with a title game against Villanova…with Kris Jenkins still on the roster.
"I think our mindset going into that series was more about who we were playing than what we were playing for," says ace reliever Rob Wooten, who had a terrific 2007 campaign. "I do believe that might have hurt us a little."
Compounding the problem was the fact that the pitching staff had been taxed by the trip through the loser's bracket. Once Oregon State grabbed a lead, the Tar Heels chose to rest relievers Wooten and Andrew Carignan—both of whom had pitched on three straight days just to get to the finals—and the Beavers stretched the lead out late to earn an 11-4 victory in game one.
Oregon State was dominant again in game two, winning 9-3 to claim the national title. Incredibly, especially after a middling regular season, they trailed for only one of the 45 innings they played in Omaha that season. It was Carolina's first introduction to a College World Series truism that is worth remembering again this week—it doesn't matter what you did before you get there. It only matters who gets hot in Omaha. That team was Oregon State in 2007, and it would be Fresno State and their lively bats in 2008.
Darwin Barney won't be in the lineup on Saturday afternoon, and Mike Fox doesn't believe his current team is aware of the details of the history between the two programs. "That was a long time ago," he says. "Especially for the kids in that locker room. They were seven or eight years old, so they really don't know. It will probably be more painful for me and the coaches to see the highlights that I'm sure they're going to show from 2006 and 2007. But again, that's past history."
One detail of which Fox is certain to remind his team: Saturday's game isn't the end. It's entirely possible that the Tar Heels and Beavers might have to beat each other twice to advance to the finals. It happened in 2007, when Carolina lost early to championship favorite Rice, then beat the Owls twice. And in 2013, NC State beat the Tar Heels in the opener, but Carolina eliminated the Wolfpack four days later.
"You have to go through a gauntlet of teams that are really, really good to win the whole thing," Fox says. "So we're starting with a really, really good one. It is what it is."
Over the next 48 hours, you'll hear the 2006 and 2007 matchups between Carolina and Oregon State lumped together. That's a deceiving way to look at the two series, which are actually very different.
As mentioned yesterday, 2006 was magic. Everything was new, and every single day in Omaha was gravy.
But 2007 was about business. The end of the 2006 season had toughened the players who returned in 2007—and there were many—and they wanted to make it back to the College World Series. Oregon State struggled for most of the season and barely scraped into the NCAA Tournament field. The Tar Heels were dominant, earning the right to host both a regional and a super-regional before construction work began at Boshamer Stadium almost as soon as the final out was made in Game 3 of the epic super-regional win over longtime nemesis South Carolina.
The postseason, though, was difficult. Carolina needed heart-pounding comebacks in the regional against East Carolina and Western Carolina, and then had to win the winner-take-all third game against the Gamecocks.
In Omaha, the trend continued. A win over Mississippi State began play at Rosenblatt Stadium, but then powerful Rice thumped the Heels, 14-4. Carolina then proceeded to win games on three straight days, including back-to-back wins over the Owls, to earn a spot in the finals against the Beavers, who had suddenly caught fire in the postseason and were steamrolling opponents. Even the fact that they were making some off-field headlines, as they will again in 2018, didn't seem to distract them.
"We would never have admitted it, but our tanks were running low," says Chad Flack. "Every game in Omaha was a ton of fun but it is also stressful. Every pitch and at-bat is magnified to a whole new level and when you have to go through the loser's bracket, it's that much harder."
Especially for the returnees, seeing that familiar orange and black jersey on the opposite side in the championship series rekindled memories of 2006. There were several Tar Heels who were not big fans of the Beavers' deliberate style of play or the way they'd mugged for the media.
Oregon State was hot, yes, but Carolina had been one of the nation's best teams since February. Walking out of Rosenblatt Stadium after the pre-series press conference on the day off, there was a genuine sense that the Tar Heels were about to exact some revenge.
And perhaps that was a little too much of the focus. To put it in some present-day perspective, imagine that the 2017 basketball redemption tour had been capped with a title game against Villanova…with Kris Jenkins still on the roster.
"I think our mindset going into that series was more about who we were playing than what we were playing for," says ace reliever Rob Wooten, who had a terrific 2007 campaign. "I do believe that might have hurt us a little."
Compounding the problem was the fact that the pitching staff had been taxed by the trip through the loser's bracket. Once Oregon State grabbed a lead, the Tar Heels chose to rest relievers Wooten and Andrew Carignan—both of whom had pitched on three straight days just to get to the finals—and the Beavers stretched the lead out late to earn an 11-4 victory in game one.
Oregon State was dominant again in game two, winning 9-3 to claim the national title. Incredibly, especially after a middling regular season, they trailed for only one of the 45 innings they played in Omaha that season. It was Carolina's first introduction to a College World Series truism that is worth remembering again this week—it doesn't matter what you did before you get there. It only matters who gets hot in Omaha. That team was Oregon State in 2007, and it would be Fresno State and their lively bats in 2008.
Darwin Barney won't be in the lineup on Saturday afternoon, and Mike Fox doesn't believe his current team is aware of the details of the history between the two programs. "That was a long time ago," he says. "Especially for the kids in that locker room. They were seven or eight years old, so they really don't know. It will probably be more painful for me and the coaches to see the highlights that I'm sure they're going to show from 2006 and 2007. But again, that's past history."
One detail of which Fox is certain to remind his team: Saturday's game isn't the end. It's entirely possible that the Tar Heels and Beavers might have to beat each other twice to advance to the finals. It happened in 2007, when Carolina lost early to championship favorite Rice, then beat the Owls twice. And in 2013, NC State beat the Tar Heels in the opener, but Carolina eliminated the Wolfpack four days later.
"You have to go through a gauntlet of teams that are really, really good to win the whole thing," Fox says. "So we're starting with a really, really good one. It is what it is."
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