ACC Country

It happens in baseball more than any other sport.  The stunted flow of the game lends itself to bad luck, bad breaks, and bad nights.

And on Sunday night in Omaha, it was not Carolina’s night.

While the Tar Heels were eliminated earlier this evening 6-1 at the hands of the upstart Fresno State Bulldogs, in all actuality, they lost their shot at the CWS Final by dropping their first meeting with the Bulldogs last Tuesday.  Stuck in a position where they, thanks to the weather, had to win three games in three days to advance, a loss in any of them meaning elimination, the Diamond Heels used everything in the cabinet and simply ran out of gas.  They gave us a helliva ride though, with exhilarating last at bat victories on Friday and Saturday courtesy of home runs by Tim Federowicz, that of the grand slam fashion, to eliminate LSU and Chad Flack to force a decisive game with Fresno on Sunday.

But nothing went right for Carolina Sunday evening.  Every ball that was well hit seemed to go right to a Bulldog fielder.  Every well hit ball Fresno hit found the hole.  The home plate ump made some questionable calls.  And our pitchers were gassed.  You can only use Alex White so many days in a row before he’s not effective as usual.  Same with Rob Wooten.  But Carolina had no other choice.  And when it came right down to it, the Heels’ bats needed Jobu and some rum, because they seemingly left men on base every inning.  Credit Fresno – they were definitely the better team tonight, though I don’t think they were the better team period, if that makes sense.

Should be a fun final, but Georgia is playing excellent baseball right now and I think they take it – probably in two.