Men's College World Series: Everything you need to know before North Carolina vs. Oklahoma in the finals
And then there were two.
Eight teams arrived in Omaha a week ago with their sights set on a Division I baseball national championship, and two quickly separated themselves once games began. North Carolina and Oklahoma went undefeated on their respective sides of the Men's College World Series bracket, setting the stage for a best-of-three finals between the Tar Heels and Sooners that begins Saturday at Charles Schwab Field.
This will be these programs' third meeting in the postseason. In 2010, UNC was sent to the Norman regional and lost twice to the Sooners, who went on to make their first MCWS appearance since 1995. The inverse occurred last year, when the Sooners were eliminated by the Tar Heels at the Chapel Hill regional. That recent matchup means there are a bunch of holdovers on both rosters who will view this year's finals as a rematch of sorts. At the same time, the transient nature of college baseball today means there are also a ton of new players who will be competing against one another for the first time.
Here's everything you need to know about the two teams still standing in Omaha.
North Carolina Tar Heels
Program history
The Tar Heels are one of the most successful Division I programs that has never won a national title. This is their 13th trip to the College World Series, which, if they fall short again, would be the second-most of any program without a championship, behind only Florida State at 24 (UNC is currently tied with Clemson and Arkansas at 12). It was 20 years ago that UNC came closest to winning it all, and that was an unfortunate (if unlikely) case of déjà vu: Both the 2006 and 2007 Tar Heels teams lost in the MCWS Finals to Oregon State. They've returned to Omaha six times since those near-misses (2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2018, 2024) but haven't reached the championship series again until this year.
Head coach Scott Forbes has been around for nearly all of these deep postseason runs. His first stint on staff came as an assistant from 1999-2002 under Mike Fox, whom he played for at Division III North Carolina Wesleyan from 1995-1997. Forbes then spent three years coaching at Winthrop before returning to Chapel Hill in 2009. He then served as the pitching coach until taking over for Fox as head coach in 2021. Forbes has been through countless ups and downs with the Tar Heels, and finally hoisting the trophy would be the culmination of his decades of dedication to this storied program.
How they got here
A consensus top-15 team entering the season, North Carolina quickly climbed the national polls into the top five, where it remained for much of the spring. After losing its first conference games of the season to Virginia in early March, the Tar Heels won their remaining nine ACC series and finished second in the regular-season standings behind Georgia Tech, who also beat UNC in the ACC tournament.
The eight other ACC teams in the postseason field all lost in the regional round, leaving UNC as the lone conference representative in super-regionals. That put added pressure on the Heels to advance — 2005 was the last time the MCWS didn't feature at least one ACC team — and they rose to the occasion. Despite losing the first game of the best-of-three super-regional against USC, UNC rallied over the next two in dramatic fashion to topple the Trojans and return to Omaha.
Once in Nebraska, UNC defeated Ole Miss 6-2 in its opening game, scoring all of its runs in the later frames after trailing 1-0 through five innings. Another tense contest followed against West Virginia. That one was tied 2-2 through six innings, but a three-run seventh propelled UNC into the driver's seat in its bracket. The Heels took down the Mountaineers again Wednesday to advance to the finals, this time with an impressive offensive display featuring 12 runs on 16 hits, albeit no home runs. Most crucially, by staying undefeated and avoiding the if-necessary semifinal game, UNC put itself in prime position to roll out its top two starters on full rest in the championship series.
Prospects to know
Let's start with those top two starters: right-handers Jason DeCaro and Ryan Lynch. Both are eligible for the MLB Draft next month, and both have been staples in UNC's weekend rotation all season. DeCaro (2.30 ERA in 93 ⅔ innings) is the more polished college performer, with plus command of a deep pitch mix, while Lynch is the more promising pro prospect, with bigger velocity and a sharp slider.
But the Tar Heels' most distinct strength on the mound is its trio of underclassmen relievers, who have been nearly untouchable in the later frames. No pitcher in Division I has appeared in more games than bespectacled sophomore right-hander Walker McDuffie, who has made 37 appearances for UNC and struck out 86 batters in 69 innings with a 3.26 ERA. A pair of freshmen — righty Caden Glauber (2.17 ERA in 87 innings)and left-hander Jackson Rose (2.15 ERA in 50 ⅓ innings) — have even greater pro potential down the road. The Heels are 28-0 in games in which Glauber has appeared; that includes five of their eight NCAA tournament victories.
The UNC lineup is headlined by four transfers, plus a homegrown star in junior Gavin Gallaher, who has provided a boatload of clutch hits in his three years as a Tar Heel and was just named the Rawlings Gold Glove Award winner at second base. The quartet of impact additions is shortstop Jake Schaffner (North Dakota State), center fielder Owen Hull (George Mason), first baseman Erik Paulsen (Stony Brook) and catcher/DH Macon Winslow (Duke), and Schaffner and Hull are the ones to monitor in next month's draft. Schaffner is a sure-handed shortstop with plus speed and a nice, left-handed swing who could stand out in a draft class light on college middle infielders. Hull was actually eligible for last year's draft after a huge season with the Patriots as a sophomore, but he wanted to prove himself against superior competition and did just that with the Tar Heels. He has been sensational in the postseason, with multi-hit efforts in five of his past six games; he might have mashed his way into first- or second-round consideration after looking like more of a third-to-fifth-round candidate entering the spring.
Oklahoma Sooners
Program history
Unlike its opponent, Oklahoma has a national title on its résumé — two, actually — but it has been a while. The first came way back in 1951, when the Sooners won the fifth edition of the Men's College World Series and the second to be held in Omaha. In the non-ancient history department, Oklahoma was the national champion in 1994. That team featured a pair of future big-league pitchers (Russ Ortiz and Mark Redman), Ryan Minor (the Orioles third baseman who famously started in place of Cal Ripken Jr. at the end of his record ironman streak) and two players who went on to become highly successful Division I softball coaches (Kenny Gajewski at Oklahoma State, Tim Walton at Florida).
Speaking of softball, that's unquestionably what the Sooners have been known for recently among bat-and-ball sports, as they've racked up an astonishing eight national championships this century, including four straight from 2021 to 2024. Funnily enough, this is the first year since 2015 that the Sooners softball team failed to reach the Women's College World Series. Meanwhile, the baseball team is on the precipice of its third national title, but there's work to be done. Head coach Skip Johnson, now in his ninth season at the helm, guided the Sooners to the MCWS finals in 2022, but they lost in two games to Ole Miss. He's looking to finish the job this time.
How they got here
An unremarkable club during the regular season that qualified for the postseason more due to its competence in college baseball's toughest conference than its unquestioned quality, the Sooners epitomize getting hot at the right time. Oklahoma lost its last four conference series and went one-and-done in the SEC tournament, so it didn't arrive in the postseason with any hint of momentum. Optimism was even harder to come by when the Sooners got sent to the regional hosted by No. 2 overall seed Georgia Tech, but Oklahoma stunned the college baseball world by taking down a loaded Yellow Jackets team and advancing to supers on a walk-off home run that left the hometown crowd in Atlanta in stunned silence.
Having eliminated the ACC champs, the Sooners moved on to super-regionals to take on another conference champion, Kansas. Oklahoma marched into Lawrence and swiftly dispatched the Jayhawks with two blowouts, 8-1 and 13-2, to advance to the MCWS. And the Sooners have hardly cooled off since arriving in Omaha, as they bludgeoned Alabama 9-0 in the opener before taking down No. 3 overall seed Georgia — another conference champion — twice to clinch a date with UNC in the finals. The most notable development amid this spectacular postseason run has been a sudden power surge: The Sooners have blasted 26 home runs across 10 NCAA tournament games (2.6 HR/G) after homering just 65 times in 53 regular-season games (1.2 HR/G).
Prospects to know
Adding to the unique nature of Oklahoma's June heater has been its reliance on freshman pitchers. The Sooners joined 2016 Texas Tech as just the second team since 1999 to start three freshman pitchers in the Men's College World Series: left-hander Cord Rager (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 8 K vs. Alabama), right-hander Xander Mercurius (7 ⅓ IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 9 K vs. Georgia) and right-hander Nick Wesloski (5 ⅔ IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 4 K vs. Georgia). Rager has been the best of the bunch all season (4.69 ERA, 89 strikeouts, 19 walks across 71 innings), an incredible development after he was considered more of a first baseman as a high school prospect in Texas. Xander's older brother, LJ Mercurius, is another Sooner arm to know, as he's a fourth-to-sixth-round prospect in this year's draft and leads Oklahoma in innings pitched as a versatile swingman who could start or come out of the bullpen.
Leading the position players is junior Jaxon Willits, son of former big-league outfielder and Sooners associate head coach Reggie Willits and older brother of last year's No. 1 draft pick and current Nationals top prospect Eli Willits. Jaxon, a switch-hitting shortstop like his brother, won't be drafted nearly as early as Eli but should hear his name called in the first five rounds in July. He sets the tone on both sides of the ball, batting cleanup and providing stellar defense at shortstop. Four junior-college transfers — catcher Deiten Lachance, catcher/left fielder Brendan Brock, first baseman Dayton Tockey and DH Trey Gambill — have supplied the bulk of the slugging, but the Sooners have also gotten some big home runs from speedy outfielders Jason Walk and Dasan Harris. Third baseman Camden Johnson, a transfer from Wichita State, is another athletic infield prospect who could be drafted in the first handful of rounds next month.
Prediction
North Carolina in 3
It's difficult to envision any team slowing down the Sooners, considering how scorching hot they've been the past two weeks. But the Tar Heels have the depth of arms required — and rested — to get the job done, and they boast enough offensive firepower to keep up with Oklahoma's explosive lineup.
It should be a tremendous series that could go either way, but I'll lean slightly toward the trophy heading to Chapel Hill for the first time.
