GoHeels Exclusive: Fight And Believe
April 5, 2019 | Baseball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
Just past the midway point of the regular season, the North Carolina baseball team finds itself where it expected to be, sitting atop the ACC Coastal Division standings.
But the Tar Heels' path to this point hasn't exactly been smooth.
A consensus preseason top-10 team, UNC opened the season 12-1. Then, in its first ACC series, Carolina was swept at Clemson, despite entering the bottom of the ninth inning with the lead in two of the three games.
The Tar Heels have since been trying to rebound from that, a task that became more arduous when they lost their series openers against Miami and Virginia Tech. But they bounced back to win both of those series. And with last weekend's sweep of Duke, UNC (22-7, 7-5 ACC) enters Friday's series opener at Georgia Tech tied with the Yellow Jackets for first place in the Coastal.
"I feel like we needed to finish the month on a good note, and we've been able to do that since we started the league 0-3," said Mike Fox after Sunday's 16-6 win over Duke. "To be standing where we are now is a great credit to our kids, who just continue to fight and believe. Hopefully that's a good sign for us."
Recent history shows it can be.
UNC started last season 7-7, with two of those seven losses coming in its first ACC series at Louisville. Carolina could've easily succumbed to that adversity. But the Tar Heels never became discouraged, and the lessons they learned early on proved valuable in helping them earn the No. 6 national seed in the NCAA Tournament and reach the College World Series.
A few key leaders off last year's team are no longer on the roster. Several still remain, though, including Austin Bergner, Michael Busch, Ike Freeman, Brandon Martorano and Ashton McGee to name a few.Â
After the Clemson series, McGee said "a bunch of the freshmen were down." But the upperclassmen were there to lift them up. And that's paid dividends.
"We have some veterans in there who knew after the Clemson weekend that we've got nine more weekends to go," Fox said. "There are 30 league games. Let's don't all panic after just three of them. It helps to sweep (Duke) to kind of offset being swept. But we still have a long way to go."
First comes this weekend's trip to Georgia Tech, where UNC is 30-37 all-time. Carolina is looking to win its third straight series at Russ Chandler Stadium, a feat that the Tar Heels haven't accomplished since they played their first three-game series at the facility in 1990.
After that, UNC visits Notre Dame next weekend. It then hosts three-game series against Boston College and Virginia later this month, with challenging midweek games against South Carolina, Coastal Carolina and Liberty sprinkled in between.
Luckily for Carolina, Gianluca Dalatri and Joey Lancellotti returned from illness and injury, respectively, last week. It will need both as it navigates this upcoming stretch.
"These next four weekends will be critical for us, two of them on the road and all four of them against really good clubs," Fox said. "We've gotta have everybody at full strength."
Because even though the Tar Heels enter April where they expected to be, they know, in the ACC, that can easily change.
"From here on out," Aaron Sabato said, "it's just making sure nobody can catch us."
