CHAPEL HILL – The No. 1 UNC baseball team has started the season undefeated at 16-0 for the second time in school history and is five games short of its best start ever. Head Coach Mike Fox says everyone on the team has bought in to this year’s gameplan.

“We have a veteran team—a lot of guys back from last year,” Coach Fox says. “Some news guys really stepped in and started playing well right out of the gate. We gained a little bit of confidence and we’re playing pretty well.”

Pretty well indeed. Carolina is averaging almost ten runs per game and is outscoring its opponents 156-39 this season.

Coach Fox says the success doesn’t just start with the kind of players he recruits, but the kind of people they are.

“We try to recruit kids of somewhat similar backgrounds,” Coach Fox says. “That always helps initially. Then you just try to create that culture and when you’re winning, that helps as well. Leadership is so, so important.”

North Carolina returns home this weekend to face the No. 29 Miami Hurricanes who started their ACC schedule 1-2 against Duke last weekdn. Coach Fox says annually this series is a battle for both sides.

“They’ve had our number as of late,” Coach Fox says. “We went about a four-year stretch and they couldn’t beat us; we’ve had about a three-year stretch where we couldn’t beat them. Miami’s always good. They have a storied program. They’ll have some kids that can really run and (will be) another quality ACC opponent. They’ve been to the World Series like we have so it’ll be our first big, big test at home.”

And, Coach Fox says a full house will certainly help with the battle.

“What we want to accomplish is to get more people to come to our games,” Coach Fox says. “That’s the bottom line. It’s just to have more fans and some more spectators. And the bottom line with that is we think our kids and our players deserve it.”

First pitch Friday between North Carolina and Miami is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at Boshamer Stadium.