
{"id":18750,"date":"2011-06-09T12:10:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T16:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=18750"},"modified":"2011-06-09T12:10:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T16:10:49","slug":"unc-stanford-set-for-marquee-ncaa-baseball-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/06\/09\/unc-stanford-set-for-marquee-ncaa-baseball-series\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC, Stanford set for marquee NCAA baseball series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/06\/09\/unc-stanford-set-for-marquee-ncaa-baseball-series\/landreth-mug-23\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18751\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/landreth-mug.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"landreth-mug\" width=\"100\" height=\"134\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-18751\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/landreth-mug.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/landreth-mug-84x113.jpg 84w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/landreth-mug-75x100.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Eddy Landreth<\/strong><em><br \/>\nStaff  Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This could easily be a match made in Omaha \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as in Nebraska and the College World Series.<\/p>\n<p>Stanford (35-20), one of the top academic institutions in the nation and a school rich in baseball heritage, will travel to Chapel Hill this week to play Carolina (48-14) in a super regional of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels and Cardinal will play a best-of-three series, beginning Friday at 3 p.m. The winner of the series will advance to the College World Series in Omaha. The second game this weekend starts on Saturday at 3 p.m. If needed, game three will be played Sunday at 4 p.m. The games will be broadcast on ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>Since the current format of the NCAA Tournament was installed in 1999, Stanford has been to eight super regionals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2011 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and has reached the CWS each of those times except 2006. <\/p>\n<p>Carolina has not won a national championship in baseball, but the Tar Heels have the most victories (35) in the tournament since 2006, when they began a run of four consecutive trips to Omaha.<\/p>\n<p>This will be a particularly difficult series, given the strength of Stanford\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s program and team. The Cardinal was the second seed in the Cal State Fullerton regional this past weekend and won that against Fullerton, which entered the weekend second behind Carolina with victories in the tournament since 2006.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fullerton is a great program,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stanford coach Mark Marquess said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat themselves, and they play a brand of baseball where they put a lot of pressure on you. When you can beat a team like that, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a feather in your cap.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>If the Tar Heels have an edge, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s playing at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we got the national seed, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just my saying,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d associate head coach Scott Forbes said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re playing at the Bosh; somebody is going to have to beat us at the Bosh.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hard to beat here. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re really excited about that. The guys got a taste of what postseason was like last year at Oklahoma, and they did not want to be on the road.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Carolina had to play in the regional without head coach Mike Fox, who was with his family during the weekend. His mother died of cancer on Saturday. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expected to return for this series.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels made him proud. UNC put on an impressive show, allowing just three runs in three games. The Tar Heels shut out their opponents in two of the games, and senior right-hander Patrick Johnson (12-1, 2.18 earned run average) extended his scoreless streak to 23 innings.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That is a credit to P.J.,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said fellow senior Greg Holt, who hit a home run while driving in four runs and scoring three against James Madison in the second game of the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He works his tail off every day he comes down here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Holt said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got 23 scoreless now, and that is a credit to him. He goes out every day and competes. He is a bulldog for us. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been doing it all year. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not surprising what he is doing right now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson pitched a complete-game shutout against then-No. 1 ranked Virginia in the final series of the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>Then he had a no-hitter going against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament when rain forced postponement of the game after six innings. On Saturday, he threw eight shutout innings against James Madison, a team that averaged 9.2 runs per game before this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Stanford has pitching and defense of its own, though. The Cardinal defeated Cal State Fullerton 1-0 in the critical game of that regional.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Pines (6-5) pitched 7 and two-thirds scoreless innings to get the victory against Fullerton.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We feel confident,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Carolina left fielder Chaz Frank said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are confident. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just super excited to be going to the super regional.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Eddy Landreth<\/strong><br \/>\n<br \/>\nThis could easily be a match made in Omaha \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as in Nebraska and the College World Series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-18750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18750"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18844,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18750\/revisions\/18844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}