The No. 17 North Carolina baseball team, 4-3 on the season, will look to build off the momentum of its 12 run outing against Appalachian State, embarking on a weekend home series with North Florida, also sporting a 4-3 record.

The Tar Heels will be starting sophomore Trent Thornton on the mound Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. in Chapel Hill while junior Benton Moss has been moved to a Saturday start.

Thornton speaks with Ron Stutts on WCHL’s Friday Morning News at 8:20 a.m.

Junior slinger Chris McCue says the young freshmen players have made a rather seamless transition to the Tar Heel lineup.

“I don’t think they’ve had a tough time making that transition from high school to college. I think that’s huge, especially when you have a young time. The freshmen, surprisingly, have done really well,” McCue says.

McCue says for the Tar Heels, all roads point to Omaha, and that includes keeping tabs on the weather forecast in Nebraska.

“We’re expecting to go to Omaha. We want to go to Omaha. That’s our main goal at the end of the season, to win a national championship. We’re always geared up towards that. Even in the weight room we have the weather in Omaha. We write it up on the white board just to keep everyone’s minds geared towards that,” McCue says.

This weekend will mark the first meeting between UNC and North Florida since 2008. The Tar Heels won both games in the two-game set staged in Cary. The Ospreys were outscored 20-7 in those two contests by the Tar Heels.