Postseason Mode Leads Baseball To Regional Host

The Diamond Heels roll into the postseason soaring with confidence as champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference and winners of 15 of their last 17 games, including seven in row.

However, at the end of April that was not the case.

Carolina struggled through the middle third of the season, losing five consecutive series and after getting swept at Virginia, the Heels were 8-13 in the ACC and in danger of missing the conference tournament with nine league games remaining.

"If you look at that series, obviously, Virginia has a really talented team," UNC Head Coach Scott Forbes said. "At the time, it was just a matter of us finding a way to pitch better and to play better defense.

"We just talked about being more fundamentally sound, trying to be a little bit tougher, but also using that adversity to help us and understand that baseball is a momentum-based game. And if you get hot down the stretch, all that adversity and all those tough losses will only help you. And you can tell those guys took that to heart. They kept believing because a lot of people didn't keep believing."

Following the series against Virginia, the Heels returned home and avenged an early season loss to Liberty, 8-1, then took the week off for final exams, allowing them to reset and refocus.

"We had this mentality of 'we got to play every game like it's the postseason now," junior Angel Zarate said. "Everybody's got to have their A-game every game.' And that's how we've been. This team, we just work hard every day to get better in some way, shape or form and I think it's paid off. The job's obviously not done yet."

The first game after exams against Charlotte had a postseason feel and a with Tomas Frick driving in the game-winning run in the bottom of the 10th, giving Tar Heel fans a taste of the drama to come.

Over the next two weeks, Carolina posted four come-from-behind wins with the first two coming against NC State in Raleigh. Mac Horvath lifted a sacrifice fly to plate the game-winning run in the ninth inning of the series opener and Alberto Osuna hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning of the series finale for a 7-6 victory.

"Our team just found a way to get the series done at NC State," Forbes said. "I didn't think we played great, but we came out of there with two one-run wins, and I felt like that was the switch for our guys. I saw their confidence start to take over and guys were more comfortable in the box and guys were back to being aggressive on the mound."

A series win over Wake Forest followed the next weekend setting up a critical series against Florida State to close the regular season.

With Carolina's ACC and NCAA Baseball Championship fate hanging in the balance, Alberto Osuna stepped to the plate with two on, and two outs and the Heels trailing the Seminoles by in the bottom of the ninth of the series opener.

"To me, coaching third base, he always looks like he wants to be in that moment," Forbes said.

In the moment, Osuna smashed a walk-off home run that seized the momentum which led to a series sweep.

"You can see what we were able to do the last three weeks of the regular season and how we were able to carry that into the tournament," junior Brandon Schaeffer said. "Everybody's playing better baseball when it counts."

Since the beginning with the series against NC State, the Diamond Heels are averaging 8.1 runs per game with an ERA of 3.56.

"One thing that I felt like that our players never did, even when we were going through that tough stretch, is I felt like they still played hard and they didn't quit," Forbes said. "Never quit a game, even though it was tough, and I thought that would serve them well. We just need to find a way to win a couple close games."

Carolina marched through the first two games of the ACC Baseball Championship with wins over Clemson and top-seed Virginia Tech before knocking out fourth-seeded Notre Dame in the semifinals.

In the title game against NC State, the offensive assault continued. Carolina raced out to a 9-1 lead in the first four innings and left little doubt about the outcome. Vance Honeycutt hit a home run in each of his first two at-bats, while Max Carlson pitched 5.0 strong innings before turning it over to the bullpen to secure the Heels' eighth ACC tournament championship.

"You guys saw with our basketball team; momentum is extremely important. You've got to keep it." said Forbes. "They know what they want, and they know how important their recovery is and to keep that momentum for us to play well. You don't celebrate but so much."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Max Carlson

Tomas Frick

Vance Honeycutt

Mac Horvath

Alberto Osuna

Brandon Schaeffer

Angel Zarate

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