1. Oklahoma simply outplayed Carolina in every way on Monday, cruising to a 13-2 win that earned them the national championship.
2. Carolina elected to go with freshman lefty Jackson Rose on the mound. Rose went 2.2 innings and gave up six hits and three runs while striking out five. The freshman would probably tell you it wasn’t a great performance, but it wasn’t a disaster, either.
3. But the next two pitching changes made it clear it was going to be a very difficult night. Walker McDuffie went two-thirds of an innings and gave up just one hit but walked three, leading to three runs. And then the Heels went to Caden Glauber, who did not retire either of the two batters he faced. Glauber also had to work through some adversity, some of his own making and some manufactured by the umpires. It was the first game Carolina has lost this year in which Glauber has pitched.
4. That encapsulated a night on the mound that included eight walks, three wild pitches and a hit batter. Against a team swinging as hot a bat as the Sooners, no opponent could afford to give up that many free bases. And five of Oklahoma’s leadoff batters reached base, which contributed to the feeling that there was constant traffic on the bases.
5. It felt like the bottom of the second was a key moment. OU had plated two runs in the top of the inning, but then the Heels mounted a rally in the bottom. Singles from Erik Paulsen and Carter French put two on, and then Rom Kellis V laced a single. But French was thrown out at third with the tag coming before Paulsen crossed the plate, negating his run that would have cut the lead in half and given Carolina some momentum. Instead, the Sooners left the inning feeling good and never looked back.
6. And their offense was relentless. The Sooners scored in every inning except the first and the seventh. Were they the best team the entire season? Nope. But they were the best team in the final month of the season, and in college baseball that’s very often the team that wins the national title.
7. The OU offense tonight wasn’t an aberration. Oklahoma had 27 offensive innings against UNC, and the Heels retired them 1-2-3 just four times in those 27 chances. It’s not a problem exclusive to Carolina–no one was able to get Oklahoma out in the postseason ever since they hit a walk-off home run to win the Atlanta Regional. Carolina managed nine hits, but all nine of them were singles.
8. This isn’t why Carolina lost, which is why it’s this far down in the recap. But home plate umpire Billy Van Raaphorst had a very difficult night on multiple occasions, including game management, the strike zone, and evaluating swing/no-swing decisions. Again–not in any way the reason for the defeat, because I probably could have umpired home plate myself and the outcome of these nine innings might have been the same. But at the NCAA Championship level, you need a better performance from those who are paid to be impartial about the game, no matter what might be posted on their social media. For two straight years, the NCAA has allowed an umpire to work the plate in the title game who changed the game solely with his management of the game. No one spends time and money to come to Omaha to watch the umpires, which apparently would come as a big surprise to some of them. This level deserves the best of the best and didn’t get it.
9. One of the biggest plays of Monday’s game might have happened on Sunday. That’s when Ryan Lynch had to leave the game with an injury, which changed the Tar Heel pitching plan for the rest of the game and likewise impacted it on Sunday. With Lynch unavailable again on Monday, Carolina’s pitching was depleted in a difficult fashion to overcome in a three-game series.
10. So ends a season with 54 wins and a second College World Series appearance in three years (the only team to make multiple trips in that three-year span). The Tar Heels have some holes to fill, but at this point the program has earned the benefit of the doubt and will be in contention yet again in 2027. Remember that this was supposed to be a year when the Heels were reloading and had to replace virtually the entire lineup. They played all the way until the final game of the season.
