Carolina has had an even more glorious baseball past than you would think in its more than 150 years playing.

Granted, the Mike Fox era with so many trips (7) to the College World Series and coming home with no titles is a little bit of a black mark.

But if you read Jody Jones’ piece on GoHeels.com about those regional runs, you get a new perspective on it.

Having had six Super Regionals in Chapel Hill and winning three, and often facing strong teams from the Southeastern Conference, makes this weekend’s best of three against Arkansas seem so familiar.

Jones’ story takes readers from the weekends in Columbia and Tuscaloosa, where the Diamond Heels were almost uninvited guests until winning on the second on two dramatic Chad Flack home runs, to becoming ranked and highly seeded contenders almost every year after that.

It was also remindful of winning regionals in 1978 and ’89 on SEC ball fields, but who would know that post-season trend would be regular?

Jones goes back and quotes Coach Fox and several of the players instrumental in those victories, some who went on to play professionally but still considered them special moments in their baseball lives.

The 2022 Tar Heels don’t have the cache of past super regional entries, largely due to a mid-season slump. And the Razorbacks are another of the SEC teams with talent throughout the lineup and pitching staff.

But UNC has a chance to do what they haven’t done since 2018, and do it with another packed home stadium. Follow that journey with Jones’ well-researched recent history of Carolina baseball.

As he writes, getting there doesn’t guarantee anything, but it is necessary if the Diamond Heels hope to repeat past glories and maybe even take it a step further.

 

Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Joe Bray

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