North Carolina is seeking its first-ever national championship in baseball as one of eight teams currently in Omaha for the College World Series. The Tar Heels punched their ticket by beating LSU in a Game 7 then sweeping West Virginia in Chapel Hill.
But now the road gets tougher for the national No. 4 seed, beginning with Virginia on Friday.
UNC will match up against their ACC rival in the opening game with the winner moving on in the winner’s bracket and the loser being a game away from elimination. As we get set for the start of the College World Series, 247Sports is making their predictions for the next few weeks including the first-round games.
They have Virginia beating UNC early:
Virginia took two of three from North Carolina in April and averaged 9.3 runs per game in that series. The Cavaliers are simply a bad matchup for the Tar Heels. They have the No. 2 offense nationally by batting average and can string together hits at a lethal rate with a lineup that does not have a single player hitting below .294. UNC could turn to either Jason DeCaro or Shea Sprague on the bump in this one, and neither of those staff headliners average close to a strikeout per inning, and the former walks about 4.5 batters per nine. Virginia is the kind of team that will capitalize on those deficiencies.
There’s more bad news.
Even if UNC wins their elimination game, against FSU who 247Sports predicted to lose as well, they still have Tennessee making it out of this bracket. The site is picking the Volunteers and Texas A&M Aggies to meet in the three-game series.
Let’s hope UNC can prove them wrong.
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