UNC baseball looking for more after successful series against No. 2 Georgia Tech
The No. 3 North Carolina baseball team had already done the hard part by Sunday afternoon, when junior infielder Cooper Nicholson rounded third base in the second inning — and strayed just a few steps too far.
The Tar Heels had already won the series against No. 2 Georgia Tech. They’d already clinched the second win on Saturday by run rule, for good measure, to help complete the highest-ranked home series win since sweeping No. 1 Virginia in 2011.
But that context didn’t matter to UNC and head coach Scott Forbes — who had implored his team to treat Sunday’s matchup, an eventual 5-2 loss for North Carolina, like it was a rubber match in a Super Regional series.
And so, in the second inning Sunday, when Nicholson came off of third base and was tagged out by Georgia Tech’s Alex Hernandez, head coach Scott Forbes didn’t soften his response. He pulled off his helmet and walked alongside Nicholson back to the dugout, letting his player hear it.
Even with the series secured, the standard hadn’t changed.
“They better not come out here sleepy,” Forbes told reporters after UNC’s 14-4 run-rule win over Georgia Tech on Saturday. “They know the standard… my job is to remind them that there’s no option as far as being ready to play.”
UNC pitching key in signature series win
That edge and expectation has defined a North Carolina team that, through 40 games, has one of the best starts in program history. This weekend’s series win against Georgia Tech was the latest example — and the most meaningful yet — of what the Tar Heels (33-7-1, 15-6 ACC) can be when they’re operating at their best.
They jumped ahead early — as they so often do — scoring first in their two wins and improving to 28-0 when doing so. They overpowered the nation’s top offense, holding the Yellow Jackets under five runs in back-to-back games for the first time all season. And they did it with a blueprint that Forbes has emphasized year after year in his head coaching tenure at UNC: timely offense, elite defense and, perhaps above all else, reliable pitching.
“From the pitching standpoint, that is our backbone,” Forbes said Sunday. “That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get the elite pitchers to come to North Carolina, stay two years, if they’re draft eligible, stay three years, and if they stay four that’d be great too…. the guys have to get better in your program if you’re going to win championships.”
Against a Georgia Tech lineup that entered the weekend leading the nation in runs, OPS and batting average, the Tar Heels’ pitching dictated the series.
Junior right-handed pitcher Jason DeCaro set the tone Friday (which happened to be his birthday), attacking early and working out of jams to record four strikeouts, one run and five hits in five innings pitched. By the time he exited in the top of the sixth, he became the first pitcher this season to hold the Yellow Jackets scoreless through the first five frames.
Freshman Caden Glauber and sophomore Walker McDuffie backed up their upperclassmen in the later innings Friday, combining for three punchouts, one run and one hit in four innings pitched.
After Saturday starter Ryan Lynch pitched 4.2 innings (two strikeouts, seven hits, three runs allowed), McDuffie emerged from the pen again — giving up just one hit and one run in three innings.
“You can’t give them any life,” Forbes told reporters Saturday. “McDuffie did a good job of that.”
Then there was the offense, explosive and relentless. UNC hit three home runs in back-to-back games, highlighted by Owen Hull’s 417-foot grand slam Saturday — part of a six-RBI day. The Tar Heels earned 12 walks in the run-rule win, turning patience into pressure.
When UNC’s pitchers allowed traffic, the offense answered — and vice versa. When the Tar Heel bats went quiet Sunday, the bullpen — Matthew Matthijs, Jackson Rose and Camron Seagraves — kept the game within reach.
“I thought we pitched it well enough and defended well enough to sweep,” Forbes said Sunday.
Georgia Tech reminds Tar Heels of work left to do
The Tar Heels didn’t sweep.
Sunday’s loss kept the Tar Heels from a third win. They stranded 11 runners and suffered through the kind of late-series offensive lull that can tighten games in June.
But even in that loss, UNC’s identity held.
Down to their final outs, Carter French and Jake Schaffner got on base to bring the tying run to the plate. The crowd — visibly smaller than Friday’s record-breaking 4,357 but still loud in the afternoon heat — still leaned in as the Tar Heels pushed.
They didn’t break through, but they never stopped trying — even with the season-defining series already won.
“The one thing about this team is we’re gritty,” French said. “We never feel like we’re out of a game.”
That belief has been built quickly. This roster doesn’t have the continuity of past UNC teams, shaped heavily by the transfer portal and new roles. But Forbes sees something familiar forming anyway — a cohesion that shows up in moments like Sunday’s ninth inning and, just as much, in learning moments like Nicholson’s mistake.
It’s the same connective Forbes has seen in College World Series teams of the past.
“I think they’re really close,” Forbes said of this year’s team. “And they care about each other. And they’re starting to learn to have fun when they go out there and just whatever happens, happens.”
Through 40 games, that’s translated into one of the best résumés in the country — and a team that, even after beating No. 2 Georgia Tech, is still finding things to fix on walks back to the dugout.
This story was originally published April 20, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "UNC baseball looking for more after successful series against No. 2 Georgia Tech."