The North Carolina baseball team (42-17, 17-13 ACC) captured the ACC Tournament Championship with a 10-2 win over Georgia Tech this past Sunday afternoon. Now the Tar Heels will shift focus to the NCAA tournament, where they’re ranked No. 14 nationally and will host the regional round at Boshamer Stadium. The ACC champions will be back in action Friday at 2 p.m. when they take on UNC-Wilmington (32-29).
Liberty (42-19) and Tennessee (38-19) are also in UNC's regional bracket and will play at 7 p.m. Friday evening.
The Tar Heels caught fire recently at the plate, scoring 30 runs in their last three games, and are looking for the offensive success to continue.
Head coach Mike Fox expects to face adversity come regional play and isn’t backing down from the challenge.
“Sometimes in these regionals runs are at a premium because you’re facing everybody’s best arm, especially in game one,” the veteran skipper said. “Everybody is going to throw their best arm at you because that is a critical game.”
Fox attributes the team's success at the plate to hard work and a selfless mindset.
“I think we hit the long ball all year … we can be a dangerous team,” Fox said. “You heard Michael (Busch) say, ‘We’re just a bunch of guys who want to win,’ and he showed that yesterday when he dropped the bunt down against the shift and passed the baton on to Aaron (Sabato). We need to keep that kind of mentality.”
That team-first mentality resonates from the top of the program, from Fox down to his players. Busch received lots of praise for his performance this past weekend, but he was quick to point out all of the other contributions that made winning an ACC tournament title possible.
“You can look at everybody else’s individual performance,” Busch said. “Our whole pitching staff – B-Mart (Brandon Martorano) caught 40 innings, he caught some of the best games we’ve played all year. It’s all the little things everybody does.”
