Tar Heels Draw on Arizona Lessons Ahead of Another West Coast Super Regional Foe

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Nobody around Boshamer Stadium needs to be reminded what happened the last time a West Coast team came to Chapel Hill for a super regional.

When Arizona advanced out of the Eugene regional last season, it’s safe to assume more than a few Tar Heel fans had already started researching potential trips to Omaha after North Carolina dismantled the Wildcats 18-2 in game one.

Two days later, those potential plans were nixed.

In a reminder of just how fickle baseball can be, it was Arizona celebrating on the Boshamer Stadium mound after back-to-back victories of 10-8 and 4-3, ending North Carolina’s season one win short of the College World Series.

“The game of baseball, it’s what makes it so great,” Scott Forbes said Thursday. “You’re elated, and you can also be deflated — you have great wins, you have tough losses.”

As the Tar Heels take the field this weekend for their third consecutive super regional appearance at Boshamer Stadium, they’ll do so with the lessons of June 2025 still fresh in mind.

“I’m a firm believer that failure — it’s not failure in my mind,” Forbes said. “Losing in a tough way like that, or at any time, that’s happened to us before, and a lot of times that sets up more success down the road.

“But on the other side of that, we talk about being process-oriented. We talk about today, we talk about learning from the past, making every day your masterpiece per John Wooden. We don’t really dwell on it at all. We just learn from it and move on.”

This time, it’s Southern California making the trip east.

Much like Arizona a year ago, the Trojans arrive in Chapel Hill after advancing through a regional they did not host. While the Wildcats emerged from No. 12 national seed Oregon’s regional last June, USC fought through the loser’s bracket in College Station this past weekend, winning four consecutive games — including back-to-back victories over host and No. 12 national seed Texas A&M — to earn a spot in this weekend’s super regionals.

North Carolina’s roster looks considerably different from the one Arizona eliminated a year ago. Only two position players who started during last season’s super regional — Gavin Gallaher and Carter French — remain prominent features in the Tar Heels’ lineup.

“You can win game one 1-0, you can win game one 18-2, but you’ve got to show up the next day ready to play just as much as you were the first day,” Gallaher said. “Each day is a new day.

“It doesn’t matter what you did in Game 1. The job’s not finished until it’s finished.”

In addition to Gallaher and French, the pitching staff also remembers.

All three of North Carolina’s slated starters this weekend — Ryan Lynch, Jason DeCaro and Folger Boaz — appeared against Arizona last June, giving the Tar Heels a firsthand understanding of how quickly momentum can shift in a super regional.

It’ll be Lynch who, for the second weekend in a row, will get the ball on Friday to set the tone for the Tar Heels, while DeCaro — UNC’s Friday starter across the regular season — will pitch again on Saturday. 

“Obviously you want to have success in your own right, but the most important thing at this time of the year is that we’re winning games,” DeCaro said. “Pushing your own ego to the side and just pulling for your teammates, and when you’re out there just trying to give the team the best chance to win.”

First pitch at Boshamer Stadium is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday, with game two set for 2 p.m. Saturday. If necessary, a winner-take-all game three would be played Sunday, with a start time to be announced.