UNC Moves On to Men’s College World Series Finals vs Oklahoma

Owen Hull recorded two doubles and a triple among his four hits, while Gavin Gallaher also posted four hits and four RBIs as North Carolina defeated West Virginia 12-7 on Wednesday to move into the Men’s College World Series finals for the first time since 2007.

The Tar Heels went undefeated at 3-0 in bracket play and will face Oklahoma in the best-of-three series beginning Saturday. Oklahoma advanced after eliminating Georgia with an 11-4 victory.

North Carolina will compete for its first national baseball championship. Prior to this season, the program’s 12 Men’s College World Series appearances were tied for the second most by a team without a title.

West Virginia finished 2-2 in its first Men’s College World Series appearance, with both losses coming against North Carolina.

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The Tar Heels’ offense, which had hit .217 with only four extra-base hits in their first two games in Omaha, produced eight hits in ten chances with runners in scoring position. They logged five extra-base hits along with their highest total of runs and hits, sixteen, in nine NCAA tournament games.

“We were joking before the game today, like, ‘Man, we need to have one of those games where we get 15 hits and score some runs,'” said North Carolina coach Scott Forbes. “So thankfully that happened.”

Hull finished just a home run short of hitting for the cycle. He had an RBI double in the first inning, a single in the third, another RBI double in the fourth, and a triple in the sixth. Texas’ Adrian Rodriguez accomplished the cycle three days earlier against Alabama.

“The first thing that Coach told us in our pregame meeting out in the outfield was that we want our compete factor at the top,” Hull said. “That’s what we focused on, and being default aggressive. I think it worked out pretty well.”

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The Tar Heels scored twice in the opening inning off Chansen Cole, and Cooper Nicholson’s two-run triple extended the lead to 5-1 in the third. They built a 12-1 advantage before West Virginia began to close the gap.

Starting pitcher Folger Boaz threw 28 pitches in the first inning, surrendering two singles and a walk, and did not return for the second inning. Jackson Rose pitched 4⅓ shutout innings in relief and handed the game over to Matthew Matthijs with a nine-run lead.

West Virginia rallied with five runs on five hits and two walks in the seventh inning, all coming with two outs. Colin Hynek allowed a pitch from reliever Caden Glauber to get past him as the Mountaineers closed to 12-6. Gavin Kelly then hit a home run in the eighth, his second of the Men’s College World Series and 19th of the season.

“You never want to go down,” said Mountaineers coach Steve Sabins. “If you’re going to go down, for me, being down 12-1 and scratching and clawing and fighting and running out of gas and giving literally everything that you have left in the tank to compete is poetic for me.”

In Wednesday’s other semifinal, Oklahoma secured its first finals appearance since 2022. Jason Walk and Dasan Harris each hit two home runs, while Trey Gambill added another as the Sooners improved to 41-22.

The Sooners’ five home runs set a season high. Oklahoma has hit 43 of its 91 home runs over the past sixteen games and 26 in ten NCAA tournament appearances after recording 48 in the first 47 contests.

“When you go back and look at what we’ve done in the fall and spring, we never stopped believing and those guys really turned around our year,” Oklahoma coach Skip Johnson said. His team had come out of a stretch in which it lost seven of nine games before finishing eleventh in the Southeastern Conference.

Walk and Harris each entered the semifinal with four home runs. Walk’s third-inning blast traveled 417 feet to straightaway center field, aided by the wind. Gambill and Harris homered in the fourth to make it 4-0 and end the outing for Georgia starter Paul Farley. Harris and Walk then homered again in the eighth to extend the lead to six runs.

“Just trying to be a tone setter,” Walk said. “We had great at-bats before we even scored. I knew what we had in the lineup, and it was a good day to hit.”

Harris collected five RBIs, his most in 107 career games, and three of his six home runs have come during the past four outings. “I dreamed of this moment since I was a little kid and I wanted to come here,” Harris said. “To be able to be put in these spots is something special.”

Freshman starter Nick Wesloski allowed one run in the first five innings before exiting in the sixth after two baserunners reached. A subsequent error loaded the bases, and reliever LJ Mercurius issued a walk to score two runs. Mercurius earned his fourth save after giving up one earned run on two hits in 3⅓ innings.

“OU is playing real hot baseball right now,” Georgia coach Wes Johnson said. “They’re at their peak.”

Georgia entered the tournament with a record-setting 174 home runs and ranked among the nation’s top five with 9.4 runs per game and a .326 batting average. The Bulldogs hit .183 during their four College World Series games, producing five home runs and averaging four runs per contest.

Kolby Branch hit a ninth-inning home run to finish Georgia’s scoring. Daniel Jackson, the Dick Howser Trophy winner as the nation’s player of the year, batted .157 at the event and hit one home run Monday for his 32nd of the season.

“The offense kind of struggled at times,” Branch said. “That hasn’t been us all season. Sometimes you’re rolling, and sometimes you lose a little mojo.”

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