Graduation has come and gone, the school year is at an end, but sports at Carolina continue into the late spring and early summer.
Now is the time when teams will determine the memories players, coaches and fans carry into the future.
The men’s lacrosse team is coming off an overtime victory against No. 3-ranked Notre Dame on senior night at Fetzer Field. Carolina will now advance to the NCAA Tournament, where the Tar Heels will play Maryland on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Chapel Hill.
The women’s lacrosse team is the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play Virginia at home on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The softball team is still playing, as are the men’s and women’s tennis teams, the track and field teams and the women’s golf team.
But without a doubt, the group most people will focus on is the Carolina baseball team. After a run of four straight trips to the College World Series, including an initial visit that should have resulted in a national championship, the Tar Heels barely edged into the NCAAA Tournament a year ago.
This season has been so much different. Carolina has been one of the pleasant surprises in the nation throughout this season, from a hot start in Southern California to a sweep of rival Clemson and a thrilling successful weekend at Florida State, winning two of three.
Pitching has been, for the most part, better than many expected. There was no Andrew Miller, Daniel Bard, Alex White, Matt Harvey or Adam Warren, at least as far as we knew.
But as it turns out, there are some freshmen who have been exceptional and some experienced players who have grown and advanced to further the tradition being established under Coach Mike Fox and his staff.
Freshman left-handed pitcher Kent Emanuel of Georgia is in the mold of those greats who came before him and played such a huge role in Carolina playing four straight years in the College World Series.
The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted him in the 19th round of last summer’s draft. If Emanuel continues to progress as he has this season, his decision to attend Carolina is going to pay handsomely after his junior season, when he’ll again be eligible for the draft.
The kid is 6-feet-4-inches and can just flat-out pitch. He is 6-1 with a team-leading earned run average of 2.73, which is extraordinary in a game played with aluminum bats. His control has been exceptional, as he has struck out 59 batters while walking just 13.
Emanuel isn’t the only newcomer to excel. Third baseman Colin Moran entered this week leading the team with a .362 average. He is just the fourth freshman in the history of UNC baseball to have 60 runs batted in. As the week began, he led the team in doubles (16), home runs (8), total bases (107) and slugging percentage (.615), and was second to star shortstop Levi Michael in walks, with 35.
One of the secrets to being a successful hitter is knowing how to work the count. In youth baseball, you hear the dads screaming, “Swing the bat; swing the bat.†Unfortunately, you also hear a lot of their coaches saying the same thing.
Having the nerve to make a pitcher throw the ball where you want it separates so-so hitters from great ones. This sometimes means going deep in the count.
Former Carolina All-American Dustin Ackley was one of the best two-strike hitters I have ever seen at any level. He had no fear of waiting for the pitch he wanted, and he rarely struck out.
Of the top four hitters on the Tar Heels’ roster, in terms of batting average, Moran has the second-fewest strikeouts, yet he leads by a wide margin in home runs. If you don’t think that’s a statistic that warms Fox’s heart, then you truly have no concept of what baseball is all about.
The toughest part of the season is here, so we will soon find out just how good this year’s baseball team is. First there is this weekend’s series at Georgia Tech and then a regular season-ending series at home against the nation’s top-ranked team in some polls, Virginia.
That will be followed by the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Tournament is when Carolina will have a shot to put a stamp on the season that could place it alongside some lofty company of the recent past.