Friday afternoon is the day college baseball players have been dreaming of since June – Opening Day.
Your first thought might be – baseball in February? But it’s still Winter time and college basketball is in full swing?
Yes – even in the cold, we’re playing baseball.
In a deep ACC, one of many teams projected to have a solid campaign is UNC. They return a deep pitching staff, sport over 20 newcomers and have arguably the best outfielder in all of college baseball – Vance Honeycutt.
He’s only a junior, but Honeycutt is playing himself into an early, first-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. He’s the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the year, a career .279 hitter, has 37 home runs and 100 RBIs, plus 28 stolen bases.
Honeycutt is generating lots of praise for his play, including from his head coach, Scott Forbes.
“I think he’s gonna have his best year, he’s going to be the most complete he’s been,” Forbes said in an interview this week. “I’m just honestly going to enjoy being around him. I think he’s a generational type player. I’ve never coached a player that’s that good defensively with that much power offensively, that’s also just like a phenomenal kid. You know, he’s one of our leaders. He may not be a captain, but he also got a lot of votes. So I’m just going to enjoy it because I’m going to say a million times, when he’s gone, Vane Honeycutt would have had that, right? So I’m going to enjoy knowing like, hey, he’s got it.”
If you want to watch Honeycutt in action, your first chance to do so will be on Friday, Feb. 16 at 4 pm on the ACC Network.
The Diamond Heels open this weekend against Wagner, host Elon next Tuesday and then play a 3-game series against ECU from Feb. 23-25.