{"id":3504,"date":"2026-06-19T19:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T19:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3504"},"modified":"2026-06-19T19:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T19:36:22","slug":"north-carolina-going-for-1st-national-title-in-baseball-in-cws-finals-against-surging-sooners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3504","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina going for 1st national title in baseball in CWS finals against surging Sooners"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) \u2014 Scott Forbes had just wrapped up a College World Series news conference Friday when Skip Johnson walked into the room to pose with him for an annual picture of the head coaches next to the national championship trophy, a longtime tradition the day before the start of the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3502\">Cape Verde\u2019s star goalkeeper Vozinha gets a family boost before Uruguay clash<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, buddy,\u201d North Carolina\u2019s Forbes said, beaming and extending his hand to the Oklahoma coach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou thought we were going to fight?\u201d Johnson said, turning to reporters.<\/p>\n<p>The college baseball lifers have known each other for decades, since they spent long days and nights scouting the same talent showcases and engaging in recruiting battles during long runs as assistants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always thought if we met up together,\u201d Forbes told Johnson, \u201cwe\u2019d be hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, they\u2019re hunting together all right.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina will be looking for its first national title in baseball and Oklahoma for its third when the schools square off in Game 1 of the best-of-three series at Charles Schwab Field on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels and Sooners have taken different routes to reach the same destination.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina (53-12-1) has lost consecutive games just once, in early March, and has been ranked no lower than No. 4 by D1Baseball.com the last two months.<\/p>\n<p>Oklahoma (41-22) was ranked as high as No. 8 and then lost six of nine series in Southeastern Conference play. The Sooners finished 11th in the SEC and were unranked when they entered the national tournament off losses in seven of nine games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the SEC just offers a great preparation, period, for this type of tournament,\u201d OU\u2019s Trey Gambill said. \u201cThere\u2019s no breaks. Just like in this tournament, you\u2019re not playing any bad teams. You\u2019re not playing any mediocre teams. You\u2019re playing the best of the best. So the SEC just prepared us for always being ready to put our best out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both teams went 3-0 in CWS bracket play. The Tar Heels have won five straight, and the Sooners are on a season-best eight-game streak.<\/p>\n<p>The Game 1 pitching matchup pits North Carolina ace Jason DeCaro (11-2) against 6-foot-6, 237-pound left-hander Cord Rager (6-3), one of three freshman starters for the Sooners. DeCaro went 6 2\/3 innings and struck out nine in Carolina\u2019s 6-2 win over Mississippi last Friday. Rager walked none and struck out eight in seven innings of a 9-0 win over Alabama last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3500\">US hopes to give fans reason to revel when it faces Australia in Seattle, even without Pulisic<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>SEC streak on line<\/h3>\n<p>Oklahoma will be going for the Southeastern Conference\u2019s seventh straight national title and 18th overall, which would tie the Pac-12 for most.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC is assured of having the champion, runner-up or both for the 20th time since 2000. The Sooners are the 10th different SEC team to reach the finals over that span.<\/p>\n<h3>ACC\u2019s first finals since 2015<\/h3>\n<p>North Carolina is the first Atlantic Coast Conference team to make the CWS finals since Virginia in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels are trying to become the third ACC program to win a national title in baseball. Wake Forest won the first in 1955 and Virginia the second in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina (2006-07, 2026) and Virginia (2014-15) are the only ACC programs to play in the finals since the best-of-three format started in 2003.<\/p>\n<h3>Power surge<\/h3>\n<p>DeCaro will face a Sooners team that\u2019s averaging 10.4 runs per game with 22 homers during their eight-game win streak. They\u2019ve gone deep eight times in the CWS, including five in an 11-4 win over Georgia on Wednesday. OU has 45 homers in its 20 games since May 1 after hitting 46 homers in its first 43.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat Jason\u2019s going to do is what he\u2019s been doing,\u201d Forbes said. \u201cWe don\u2019t care what the offense has been, what they\u2019re doing, how hot they are. He\u2019s going to go right after them with his stuff. You start being tentative, you start getting negative counts, then that offense gets even better.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Call him K-den<\/h3>\n<p>North Carolina is 28-0 when Caden Glauber pitches. The freshman leads the Tar Heels with 106 strikeouts and 13.76 per nine innings, and he has allowed one run in 5 1\/3 innings over three CWS games.<\/p>\n<p>Another freshman reliever, lefty Jackson Rose, pitched 4 1\/3 innings of shutout relief in a 12-7 win over West Virginia and has a 2.15 ERA over 50 2\/3 innings this season.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3498\">Christian Pulisic to miss US World Cup match against Australia because of calf injury<\/a><\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP college sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-sports<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) \u2014 Scott Forbes had just wrapped up a College World Series news&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Carolina going for 1st national title in baseball in CWS finals against surging Sooners - Raleigh Moving News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/raleighmovingnews.com\/?p=3504\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Carolina going for 1st national title in baseball in CWS finals against surging Sooners - Raleigh Moving News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"OMAHA, Neb. 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