If any team in the country knows not to take a so-called “cupcake” NCAA Tournament game lightly, it’s the Diamond Heels.
Carolina’s journey to Omaha last summer nearly ended before it began, as underdog Long Island had UNC on the ropes on the first day of the Chapel Hill Regional. It was only thanks to some ninth-inning heroics from Gavin Gallaher that Carolina managed to avoid catastrophe.
This year, No. 5 overall seed UNC will once again host a small school from the northeast – No. 4 regional seed Holy Cross, out of Worcester, MA – in its opening game. No. 2 Oklahoma out of the SEC and No. 3 Nebraska out of the Big Ten will be joining UNC and Holy Cross at the Bosh this weekend.
It’s the third time in head coach Scott Forbes’ five seasons in charge that postseason baseball has come to Chapel Hill. In both previous instances, the Diamond Heels dropped a regional game and were forced to play an extra day to advance to the Super Regionals.
“The outside thinks you’re gonna absolutely crush the 4-seed, but that’s just not how baseball works,” Forbes said Monday. “This team has experience: they went ahead, they went down. They had to come back.”
ACC Pitcher of the Year Jake Knapp is expected to start Friday’s game against Holy Cross. And even though Knapp was forced to watch his team’s run to Omaha last season with an arm injury, the UNC ace still drew wisdom from his head coach, and said he learned not to overlook anybody.
“We were one pitch away from being in the loser’s bracket,” Knapp said. “Every team is really good at this time of year. You can’t look ahead; that’s where you get in trouble. The coaches do a great job preaching that to us, and we have an older group that’s been around it a lot. So Holy Cross is our focus, and after that game, we’ll see who we get next.”
Maybe it’s because he’s used to it by now, or maybe it’s because he just loves to play baseball games. Whatever the case, Forbes said the harder the path out of a regional, the better it is in the long run for his team.
“Sometimes you return a team where they just rolled through a regional [the previous season]. And that’s happened here. But I prefer it the other way,” he said. “Because they know the games are gonna be close, they’re gonna be difficult. We’re all gonna have to be prepared. Jake said it best: we can’t overlook today. Obviously, we know who our first opponent is, but if we’re gonna be at our best against Holy Cross, we’ve got to start that preparation today.”
All that prep work will come to a head Friday at noon when UNC takes the field against the Crusaders. Forbes said playing the early game – which his team didn’t do last year – is always his preference.
“We like, personally, to play that first game to have a little more recovery,” Forbes said, “because after that you’re playing all night games if you win. You hope you don’t lose the first game, but I’ve seen anything happen.”
As for concerns about whether the early start will take a toll on attendance, the fifth-year head coach said he wasn’t worried one bit.
“The way our fans are, I feel like they’re all gonna take that Friday off anyway,” said Forbes. “They need to. I’ll write them a letter if I need to, make sure they get off.”
Will the drama of this year’s Chapel Hill Regional match last year’s? It’s certainly a tough act to follow. But as Forbes said, if the Diamond Heels find themselves walking a tightrope again, there’s no team better prepared to make a great escape.
Featured image via YCJ/Andy Mead
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