North Carolina walks off Virginia to win College World Series opener

Three of North Carolina’s six wins in the NCAA tournament have been walk-offs.

“He’s shown in his career that he enjoys the big moment,” North Carolina Coach Scott Forbes said. “He invites the big moment.”

Virginia, which lost both its CWS games last June, will play an elimination game against the loser of the Tennessee-Florida State game at 2 p.m. Sunday.

“Very disappointed. We’re frustrated because we just don’t believe that we played a very good baseball game today,” Virginia Coach Brian O’Connor said. “Not to take anything away from North Carolina — they pitched very, very well.”

Virginia entered Friday second in the country with a .336 batting average. But the Cavaliers managed only five hits as the North Carolina bullpen retired 12 of the last 13 batters it faced.

“Evenly matched. They just did a little bit more of the little things than we did,” said O’Connor, whose team entered the week averaging 9.4 runs per game. “We left 10 runners on base and just didn’t capitalize.”

The game went into the bottom of the ninth tied at 2. North Carolina pinch hitter Jackson Van De Brake, who came into the tournament batting .194, led off by slicing a double down the right field line.

He was at third base with two outs when Honeycutt, who hit a walk-off homer in the Chapel Hill super regional against West Virginia, lined the winner into left field against Chase Hungate.

There aren’t many secrets between the Cavaliers and Tar Heels, two of the four ACC teams in the field — the other four are from the SEC.

Virginia took two of three games from the Tar Heels when they met in the regular season in early April. In the middle game of that series, the Cavaliers’ Evan Blanco struck out seven and outdueled Jason DeCaro as Virginia scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull away for a 7-2 win. Those two were Friday’s starters, though neither would figure in the decision.

The Cavaliers had an opportunity to jump on DeCaro early as the freshman struggled with his control during a 30-pitch first inning.

DeCaro hit a batter and walked two to load the bases with two outs. Harrison Didawick got ahead 3-1, but DeCaro came back to strike him out and end the threat.

“I thought the first inning, the story of the game was the strikeout against Didawick,” Forbes said. “If they score right there, have a big inning, it would be tough in this ballpark. But our pitching did the same thing they’ve been doing. They kept us in striking distance.”

North Carolina (48-14) grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning as Parks Harber’s double into the left field corner was followed by an RBI groundout by Anthony Donofrio.

DeCaro didn’t allow a hit until the Cavaliers strung together three with one out in the third. Virginia (46-16) tied it when Henry Ford looped to right to score Ethan Anderson, but the Cavaliers again stranded a runner at third base. It was Ford’s team-leading 69th RBI.

Virginia left seven runners on base against DeCaro before he was lifted in the fifth after throwing 89 pitches.

The Cavaliers grabbed the lead in the sixth after Henry Godbout walked and then Eric Becker went the opposite way for a double down the left field line. Two batters later, O’Ferrall’s flyout to center brought home Godbout.

North Carolina responded in the seventh against Blanco. With a runner at second and one out, Blanco got Honeycutt to ground out on nine pitches. But Casey Cook followed with his third hit of the day, a single to left to score Alex Madera.

That set the stage for Honeycutt as he gave the Tar Heels a win in their first return to Omaha since 2018.

O’Connor, whose contract extension through 2031 was announced Thursday, has led Virginia to the CWS seven times in his 21 seasons as coach, but his team is now riding a three-game losing streak in Omaha, each a one-run loss.

O’Ferrall said the key Sunday will be not letting the moment get too big.

“Not looking at games ahead, I think that’s the biggest thing,” the shortstop said. “The only thing we can control is winning the next game. So just taking it one at a time. Like Coach said, we need to do the small details that got us here in the first place. If we can control what we can control, take it one game at a time, then we’ll have a shot to get back into it.”