UNC Baseball Following 2024 CWS Trip With Another Championship Contender
By David Glenn
Last spring, North Carolina baseball coach Scott Forbes posted by far his best season as the successor to legendary UNC leader Mike Fox, with a first-place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference and a thrilling trip to the College World Series.
This season, despite significant personnel losses, Forbes again has the Tar Heels near the top of the national rankings and seemingly well-positioned for additional high-level achievements.
image via UNC Athletic Communications
When Carolina entered the NCAA Baseball Championship a year ago, it did so as the #4 national seed. As the Tar Heels host rival NC State this week (Thursday-Friday-Sunday) in their final regular-season series at Boshamer Stadium, they’ll do so with a #4 national ranking.
UNC Head Coach Scott Forbes
Year—Overall, ACC (Place), Postseason, Final Ranking
2021—28-27, 18-18 (6th), NCAA Regional, NR
2022—42-22, 15-15* (7th), NCAA Super Regional, #13
2023—36-24, 14-14 (7th), NCAA Regional, NR
2024—48-16, 22-8 (1st), College World Series, #5
2025—36-10, 15-9 (3rd), TBD, (currently #4)
*—ACC Tournament champion
Especially given the Tar Heels’ high-profile offseason departures and in-season injury problems, their 2025 success represents a tremendous accomplishment.
Last year’s center fielder, Vance Honeycutt, was one of the best players in UNC baseball history. A three-time All-ACC performer and two-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year during his three seasons in Chapel Hill, he made the college coaches’ All-America squad last season and became the #22 overall pick (Baltimore Orioles) in the Major League Baseball draft after leading his team in both home runs (28) and stolen bases (28).
The Tar Heels’ other top sluggers from last season, first baseman Parks Harber (20 home runs) and right fielder Casey Cook (18), also moved on to professional baseball. So did ace left-hander Shea Sprague, a huge part of the team’s starting rotation a year ago, and hard-throwing southpaw closer Dalton Pence, who led the Heels in saves.
Complicating matters further, during the ongoing 2025 season, Carolina lost two important members of its pitching staff (left-hander Kyle Percival and righty Matthew Matthijs) to injury, although Forbes said good health has been among the positives for this year’s team overall.
“With a couple exceptions, we’ve been fortunate with injuries,” Forbes said. “We haven’t been fortunate with Matty Matthijs and Kyle Percival, but we’ve been fortunate positionally, and that has helped with the consistency of our day-to-day lineup.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that can change in a heartbeat. Someone can come down with a sickness or an injury at any time, so we’ve been working very hard to try to keep everybody ready. Overall, though, I like where we are right now.”
Thanks in part to Fox, who led the Diamond Heels to seven College World Series appearances during his sensational 22-year tenure, high expectations tend to surround UNC baseball.
Now, for the second year in a row, and coming off the 2024 ACC Coach of the Year award and a contract extension through the 2029 season, Forbes’ program is living up to that lofty standard.
Forbes, 50, was the Tar Heels’ long-time pitching guru under Fox, and Carolina may have the best top-to-bottom staff in the ACC, as was the case last season.
Through games of May 6, the Heels’ 3.42 team earned run average was third nationally — that’s among 300 teams — and the best in the conference by a very wide margin. (Wake Forest was second, at 4.36.) Seven of the ACC’s 16 teams had ERAs of 5.26 or higher.
Carolina’s talented and experienced starting rotation has been truly sensational this season.
Right-hander Jake Knapp (10 starts, 9-0, 2.14 ERA), a 6-foot-5, 270-pound graduate student who missed last season with an injury, has held opposing hitters to a miniscule .195 batting average this year. The two returning members of the starting rotation, senior Aidan Haugh (11 starts, 4-4, 3.27 ERA) and sophomore Jason DeCaro (12 starts, 7-3, 3.55 ERA), also have been superb.
Offensively, the Tar Heels may not be quite as explosive as they were a year ago, but Forbes said he likes the consistency and reliability of his starting lineup.
Seven players have started each of the team’s first 46 games: catcher Luke Stevenson (team-best 15 home runs), first baseman Hunter Stokely (team-best 50 RBIs), second baseman Jackson Van De Brake (team-best 13 doubles), shortstop Alex Madera (team-best .335 batting average), third baseman Gavin Gallaher (12 home runs, 49 RBIs), center fielder Kane Kepley (team-best 33 stolen bases) and right fielder Tyson Bass (.298 batting average).
All-Time NCAA Baseball Championship Bids (In-State Division One Programs Only) Bids — School, Conference
36 — North Carolina, Atlantic Coast Conference 34 — East Carolina, American Athletic Conference 34 — NC State, Atlantic Coast Conference 16 — Wake Forest, Atlantic Coast Conference
12 — UNC Wilmington, Coastal Athletic Association 12 — Western Carolina, Southern Conference 11 — Duke, Atlantic Coast Conference 7 — Campbell, Coastal Athletic Association 7 — Charlotte, American Athletic Conference 6 — Elon, Coastal Athletic Association 4 — Appalachian State, Sun Belt Conference 4 — UNC Greensboro, Southern Conference 2 — North Carolina A&T, Coastal Athletic Association 1 — Davidson, Atlantic-10 Conference
1 — High Point, Big South Conference (D1 since 2000) 1 — UNC Asheville, Big South Conference 0 — Gardner-Webb, Big South Conference (D1 since 1990) 0 — Queens, Atlantic Sun Conference (D1 since 2022)
College World Series Trips (In-State Division One Programs Only) School, Conference — Trips (Most Recent)
North Carolina, ACC — 12 (2024) NC State, ACC — 4 (2024) Duke, ACC — 3 (1961) Wake Forest, ACC — 3 (2023)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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