Tar Heel baseball fans, cue up ‘Carolina in My Mind’ by James Taylor. Tonight is the final of a 3 game series, split so far between North Carolina and Oklahoma and the winner takes home the 2026 CWS National Championship.
North Carolina started their journey in a highly competitive ACC that ultimately delivered 9 teams into the tournament. The team put together one of the most consistent campaigns in the country but came up short against Georgia Tech who claimed both the regular season and the ACC Tournament. That tournament loss has been framed as the spark that the team needed for postseason play.
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The Tar Heels earned a No. 5 seed heading into the NCAA tournament and hosted at Chapel Hill where they took out VCU and East Carolina. Chapel Hill also served as a Super Regional site and this is where things got dicey. USC won the first game 9-5. North Carolina’s Jason DeCaro delivered a 4-0 shutout in Game 2 and it was a 4-3 walk-off in Game 3 off Owen Hull’s game winning RBI double in the bottom of the ninth.
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On to Omaha and bracket play. Carolina opened with a 6-2 win over Ole Miss, then beat West Virginia 5-2 in the winner’s bracket and closed it out 12-7 over the Mountaineers in the final.
Both North Carolina and Oklahoma swept their way in 3-0, earning an extra day off and setting up the National Championship.
CWS Baseball Championship
Oklahoma took Game 1 on Saturday, 9-3 with a four run fourth inning. Facing elimination on Sunday Carolina delivered their own punch against the Sooners with a 6-2 win and forcing Game 3 tonight at 7pm ET on ESPN.
The Tar Heels are chasing their first national title after falling in the 2006 and 2007 finals to Oregon State and their the first ACC team to reach the championship series since Virginia in 2015.
Some names to keep an eye on in this final matchup. Owen Hull has been the tournament’s hottest bat at .500 over the Regional, Super Regional and his walk-off against USC. Caden Glauber, the ACC Freshman of the Year has the team at 28-0 in games in which he pitches and Gavin Gallaher who won the 2026 Gold Glove at second carried a 13-game hit streak into Omaha.
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