After winning ACC title, UNC baseball will serve as regional host for NCAA tournament
North Carolina baseball coach Scott Forbes went from “down in the dumps” after a weekend series against Virginia earlier this season, to sitting on a stage after winning an ACC title.
Sunday, the Tar Heels defeated N.C. State, 9-5, capturing the program’s eighth ACC title. Hours later, the Heels learned that they will host an NCAA regional. The NCAA announced the host locations on Sunday night, and Chapel Hill was posted among the regional sites.
This will be the 12th time UNC has hosted a tournament regional, the 11th time since 2006. The Tar Heels are 29-7 all-time in home regional games and have advanced to a Super Regional eight times since the current format was implemented in 1999. This will be the first time the Tar Heels have hosted a regional under head coach Scott Forbes. The 2022 appearance marks the 34th time for the Tar Heels in the NCAA field.
But, back on April 24, the Heels sat at 23-17 overall and 8-13 in the ACC after a three-game sweep at the hands of the Cavaliers. Since then, the Tar Heels have been on fire, going 15-2 overall and 7-2 in the ACC, which includes their four wins in the ACC tournament.
Once on the NCAA tourney bubble, UNC’s week in Charlotte changed all that. During the Heels’ current streak, they knocked off two ranked teams — Virginia Tech and Notre Dame — and added a piece of hardware to the trophy case back home.
And home is exactly where they will be this weekend, when the Tar Heels host one of 16 regionals across the country. D1baseball.com projects the Tar Heels will face Army. Vanderbilt and Coastal Carolina are also projected in North Carolina’s region.
“Even when we were going through that tough stretch,” Forbes said, “I felt like they played hard and they didn’t quit. I thought that would serve them well and we just needed to find a way to win a couple of close games.”
Carolina left Charlotte as one of the hottest teams in the nation, led by ACC tournament MVP, freshman Vance Honeycutt. The ACC tournament was his first taste of the postseason, and he’ll carry that momentum into the NCAA tournament.
“It’s just kind of win or go home,” Honeycutt said. “That kind of mentality. You’re just playing to win the one game and at the end of the day you want to be 1-0. That’s the kind of mentality you have to go at and we were able to do that this week.”
North Carolina will try to build on what it did in Charlotte, and carry it into Boshamer Stadium.
“Obviously, we are feeling pretty good,” pitcher Max Carlson said. “But we don’t want to ride the highs too high and the lows too low. We’re just going to keep our heads forward, keep working hard and see what happens.”
The NCAA selection show is Monday at noon on ESPN2.
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This story was originally published May 29, 2022 at 8:55 PM with the headline "After winning ACC title, UNC baseball will serve as regional host for NCAA tournament."
