No. 5 overall seed UNC baseball wins opening game of Chapel Hill Regional

Entering the 2026 NCAA Tournament Chapel Hill Regional, UNC coach Scott Forbes made a lineup change he hadn’t opted for in three years. Some may have considered it a gamble. Depends on who you ask.

But regardless, Forbes decided to save his Friday starter, junior right-handed ace Jason DeCaro, for UNC’s second game of the regional on Saturday. Sophomore righty Ryan Lynch faced VCU in DeCaro’s place for Friday’s opening game of the NCAA Tournament — marking his 15th start of the year but first as the leading arm of the weekend.

It turned out to be the right call.

Lynch threw a career-high 108 pitches in an 8-0 win for the No. 5 overall seeded Tar Heels over the Rams on Friday night at Boshamer Stadium. UNC (46-11-1) didn’t send any of its pitchers to the bullpen until the fifth inning, and VCU (37-24) never got on the board. The Rams never had a runner get as far as third base.

“I mean, it’s a 96 to 98 mile-per-hour fastball from a pretty weird angle, a low slot release,” Rams catcher Jacob Lee said of facing Lynch. “That’s about what we got with that. It’s a tough look.”

North Carolina has boasted, arguably, the best power-conference pitching staff in college baseball the last three years. But the last time Forbes saved his Friday ace for Game 2 of a regional was in 2023. With Dalton Pence on the mound, the Tar Heels’ season came to an end in a 6-5 loss to Iowa.

But this go around, Forbes’ call to switch up the order couldn’t have gone much better.

By the time Lynch finally stepped off the mound, the sky had turned a dark shade of blue and he’d pitched seven innings and given up two hits. And he looked like he could’ve kept going — recording two of his five strikeouts in the top of the seventh in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.

“I’m not a big social media guy, but a lot of people enlightened me that we were ‘throwing off’ today,” Forbes said after Friday’s win. “I didn’t agree with that at all. We’ve got guys. We don’t throw off. We didn’t throw off today. Ryan Lynch is one of our best guys.”

Lynch made his big breakout in the postseason last year, picking up his first three career starts as a freshman in the ACC Championship. He also started two elimination games for the Tar Heels in the regional and super regional. That late-game surge helped Lynch earn Freshman Second Team All-American honors from D1Baseball and Baseball America.

Entering this season, Lynch focused on building his endurance, perfecting his slider and getting a feel back for his changeup. But the year hasn’t gone as well as the self-critical Lynch might’ve hoped.

Lynch entered this weekend with a 4.44 ERA and a 4-4 record. He’s settled into UNC’s Saturday starter role and earned Third-Team All-ACC honors, but wishes he was more dominant. Lynch laments his slider and said Friday his pitches “definitely haven’t been where I wanted them to be.”

In Lynch’s ACC Tournament outing, he allowed three runs on nine hits in four innings pitched against Pitt.

“The last couple weeks we haven’t done our job,” Lynch said of the UNC pitching staff. “We haven’t gone long enough. A lot of inefficient outings, not putting our team in the best spot to win.”

“So I just tried to do whatever I could this week to make sure that wasn’t the case anymore,” Lynch added. “I worked on delivery a little bit more, just seeing what I could do to feel better and give my team a better shot.”

Late Friday night, Forbes pointed out Lynch’s new haircut — a fresh buzzcut — to reporters with a smile. But it was clear that Lynch’s dominant outing was a result of his relentless work.

He mixed up his pitches more — particularly leaning on improved sliders and changeups in later innings — to keep VCU’s batters off-balance. He worked throughout the past week on adjusting the delivery on his slider, making sure he could “get around it” better and replicate a similar feel he had during last year’s late-season surge.

Forbes saw the work in the days leading up to Lynch’s start. That, combined with Lynch’s quiet intensity throughout Friday, gave Forbes the confidence to stick with Lynch through seven innings.

“I saw that same look in his face as I did late in the season last year,” Forbes said. “And I thought he was efficient... just ultra aggressive.”

UNC and VCU saw each other at the Bosh just three months prior to Friday’s regional game. The Tar Heels earned a 13-3 run-rule win in that Feb. 25 contest, in which first baseman Erik Paulsen starred with a hit in all four of his at bats — two of them home runs.

Paulsen came up big again on Friday, hitting a line-drive double to right center field to drive in two runs — Gavin Gallaher and Macon Winslow — in the bottom of the first inning. Nicholson Cooper then batted Paulsen in with a single to left field to give the Tar Heels an early 3-0 lead.

UNC scored again in the bottom of the third on a Nicholson Cooper home run to left field — a 355-foot, 110-mile-per-hour shot for his 16th homer of the season.

Leadoff batter Jake Schaffner batted in the Tar Heels’ fifth run in the bottom of the eighth and was brought in by an Owen Hull triple — the center fielder’s first of the season. Two straight RBI singles by Gallaher and Paulsen gave UNC its third and fourth runs of the frame — and an 8-0 lead entering the ninth inning.

North Carolina’s go-to reliever, sophomore Walker McDuffie, and senior Matthew Matthijs closed the game out. Both right-handed pitchers took the mound for one inning each. Neither gave up a hit to complete the shutout.

With the win, the Tar Heels will face No. 3 regional seed ECU — the Pirates beat No. 2 Tennessee, 7-3, in a 14-inning endeavor earlier Friday — on Saturday at 5 p.m. UNC will have their top arm, DeCaro, ready to go against an ECU squad that burned through many of their key pitchers in Friday’s thriller.

DeCaro had one of his best outings of the season against East Carolina in February: an eight-inning gem with seven strikeouts and no runs allowed on 101 pitches.

“Once you step on the field, the adrenaline is going to kick in,” DeCaro said Thursday. “In terms of the preparation, you can’t change it up that much. You have the entire season to get into a new routine and there’s no reason to switch it up now.”

“I feel like I’m in a really good spot,” DeCaro added. “I feel really strong going into this weekend.”

North Carolina’s series against ECU in February ended in a 1-1 tie, with the third game cancelled due to weather.

For Paulsen, that adds a bit of extra motivation in Saturday’s rematch.

“Tying that game kind of stunk,” Paulsen said Friday. “It’s gonna be a really good opportunity to show them that we’re the better team.”

This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 9:14 PM with the headline "No. 5 overall seed UNC baseball wins opening game of Chapel Hill Regional."