Vance Honeycutt’s ninth-inning hit gives the Tar Heels another last-at-bat triumph, 3-2 over Virginia at CWS.
The Tar Heels (48-14) will play Sunday against the winner of Friday night’s Bracket 1 game between Florida State and Tennessee. Virginia (46-16) will face the loser of Florida State-Tennessee in an elimination game on Sunday.
Four of North Carolina’s six NCAA Tournament victories have occurred in the final at-bat. Honeycutt homered in the bottom of the ninth inning to secure a walk-off win over West Virginia in the super regional opener last week.
“You shouldn’t feel like he’s going to come through every time, but that’s how I felt,” said Casey Cook, who saw Honeycutt’s winning single from the on-deck circle. “That’s how things have been going recently. “Everyone in the dugout knew he’d come through.”
The outcome was just another disappointment for Virginia, which has lost five consecutive CWS games since 2021, the last three by a single run.
“We’re frustrated because we don’t think we played a particularly good baseball game today,” Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor said. “I’m not taking anything away from North Carolina. They pitched quite well. What I’m talking about is minor details, ignored signs. Your margin for error is very narrow. To win in Omaha, you have to be on top of everything, which we were not today. To their credit, North Carolina did enough to win the game.
Van De Brake, a.194 hitter with his previous hit coming against Pittsburgh on May 23, pinch hit for Alberto Osuna in the bottom of the ninth and doubled off Chase Hungate.
Johnny Castagnozzi has generally been the Tar Heels’ go-to pinch hitter, but hitting coach Jesse Wierbicki told coach Scott Forbes that he was comfortable with Van De Brake batting for Osuna.
“The thing about Vanny is he’s not an all-or-nothing guy,” Forbes stated. “He doesn’t have a good batting average, but he knows how to bunt and run. We thought that this park was difficult to hit a home run in, and we needed that spark.
Van De Brake advanced to third on Alex Madera’s sacrifice bunt, and Colby Wilkerson fouled out to the catcher, bringing up a predicted first-round draft pick in Honeycutt.
O’Connor chose to have Hungate (7-2) pitch to Honeycutt rather than intentionally walk him, with Cook coming up next. Cook went 3 for 4 and hit.345, the team’s highest average. Honeycutt was 0 for 4 when he came up to bat.
“It was the right matchup,” O’Connor said. “Cook, I believe, is the best hitter in the lineup. It was not an option for us to walk to Honeycutt. Honeycutt is a wonderful player with a lot of home runs, but I believe we handled him well all day, and the guy on deck had a fantastic day.”
Honeycutt hit a 2-1 pitch just over shortstop Griff O’Ferrall’s glove into left field, driving Van De Brake home and causing the rest of the Tar Heels to rush out of the dugout and crowd Honeycutt behind second base.
“Coach ‘Wierz’ had a really good approach for us, and I just wanted to go at it slow, just try to slow myself down,” Honeycutt stated. “And I got a good pitch at 2-0 and kind of came out of it. “I got the same pitch, 2-1, and stayed down.”
Dalton Pence (5-1) replaced Matt Poston in the sixth inning after Griff O’Ferrall’s sacrifice fly gave Virginia a 2-1 lead. Pence (5-1) allowed no hits in 3 1/3 innings, extending his NCAA Tournament shutout streak to 12 1/3.
Virginia won two of three games against the Tar Heels in April and headed into Omaha hitting.336, second nationally, with an average of 9.4 runs per game. The Cavaliers tied their season low with five hits, left ten runners on base, and went 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. Twelve of the Cavaliers’ last thirteen batters failed to reach base.
“The message is: Be better,” O’Connor stated. “I understand what these kids are made of. They’ve been bouncing back all year. “I know they’ll be better on Sunday.”