By The Tobacco Road Scribe
Chapel Hill, NC – For eight innings Sunday evening, North Carolina’s season appeared to be slipping toward the same hard edge that had cut short its previous June. Southern California had the lead, the ball and the late-game structure to close out a Super Regional. Then Boshamer Stadium stirred, the Tar Heels found one more rally, and Owen Hull delivered the swing that turned dread into a dogpile.
Hull’s fourth double of the game, a line drive into left-center field in the bottom of the ninth inning, scored Carter French from second base and lifted North Carolina to a 4-3 walk-off victory over USC in the deciding game of the Chapel Hill Super Regional. The win completed a two-game comeback in the best-of-three series and sent the Tar Heels to the Men’s College World Series in Omaha for the 13th time in program history.
North Carolina, which dropped Friday’s opener 9-5 before responding with a 4-0 shutout Saturday, became a team transformed by elimination. The Tar Heels did not overpower USC on Sunday. They survived, adjusted and waited long enough for the final inning to bend in their favor.
The deciding sequence came with one out in the ninth and UNC trailing 3-2. Cooper Nicholson walked to begin the comeback. French followed with a single that pushed Nicholson to third. Jake Schaffner, whose earlier run had tied the game in the third, lifted a sacrifice fly to center field to bring home Nicholson and even the score at 3-3.
After Gavin Gallaher walked, Hull came to the plate with two outs, two runners aboard and a stadium ready to erupt. On a 1-1 pitch from Chase Herrell, Hull drove a ball deep enough and hard enough to end the series. French raced home, the UNC dugout emptied and the Tar Heels poured onto the field as Hull rounded first and disappeared beneath a wave of teammates.
It was Carolina’s first walk-off NCAA Tournament win since Vance Honeycutt’s memorable swing against Virginia in the 2024 Men’s College World Series. It also sent head coach Scott Forbes back to Omaha for the second time in his tenure and gave him his 250th victory leading the Tar Heels.
A Ninth-Inning Rally Years in the Making
The drama carried extra weight because of where it happened and what had happened there before. One year earlier, North Carolina stood within reach of Omaha at Boshamer Stadium before Arizona celebrated on the Tar Heels’ home field. That memory followed the program through the offseason and into another postseason run.
This time, the Tar Heels did not let the moment get away.
Sunday’s comeback was not clean or easy. USC led 3-1 entering the bottom of the eighth and had received the kind of starting pitching performance that usually sends teams to Omaha. Andrew Johnson kept Carolina quiet for most of the afternoon, working deep into the game and forcing the Tar Heels to grind through nearly every plate appearance.
Hull started the late push in the eighth with his third double of the day. Macon Winslow, who had gone hitless in the Super Regional until that point, delivered one of the biggest swings of his season, ripping a double off the wall in deep center field to score Hull and cut USC’s lead to 3-2.
That run changed the temperature of the stadium. The Tar Heels still trailed, but the inning reintroduced pressure. USC had spent much of the afternoon playing from ahead. Suddenly, the Trojans were managing the final outs with Boshamer’s crowd pressing in and Carolina’s order beginning to turn.
The ninth completed the shift. A walk, a single, a sacrifice fly, another walk and Hull’s final double did what the Tar Heels had spent much of the series trying to do: convert traffic into runs. Through long stretches of the weekend, Carolina had created chances but failed to deliver the big hit. In the last two innings Sunday, the Tar Heels delivered all of them.
Hull’s Four Doubles Define the Night
Hull’s box score looked like something out of a postseason archive: four doubles, two RBIs and the decisive swing of a season. Each of his hits carried consequence.
In the third inning, with USC leading 1-0, Schaffner reached base and Hull pulled a double down the right-field line to score him from first. The hit tied the game 1-1 and gave Carolina its first clear offensive breakthrough against Johnson.
In the sixth, Hull doubled again but was stranded. At that point, the hit felt more like a missed opportunity than a warning. USC still led, and Carolina continued to search for the finishing hit that had eluded it in key spots across the series.
In the eighth, Hull’s third double set up Winslow’s RBI double, dragging the Tar Heels within a run. In the ninth, his fourth ended the game and the series.
There are games in which a player becomes the story because of one swing. Hull became the story because he refused to let any at-bat pass without leaving a mark. He gave Carolina its first run, created its second and delivered its fourth. He turned the game into a personal relay of pressure moments, answering each one with the same result: a ball struck hard, a runner moving, a stadium rising.
The Tar Heels’ lineup has featured different heroes throughout the postseason, from power bats to steady defenders to pitchers asked to carry elimination innings. On Sunday, it was Hull who gave UNC the offensive anchor it needed against a USC staff that had spent the weekend proving why it belonged on the national stage.
Glauber Gives Carolina Seven Crucial Innings
The walk-off will lead the highlight shows, but the game remained within reach because freshman right-hander Caden Glauber settled after a shaky first inning and gave North Carolina seven innings in a winner-take-all game.
USC struck first after Adrian Lopez reached scoring position and came home on a balk in the top of the first. The Trojans had a 1-0 lead before Glauber had fully found rhythm, and in a game with Omaha on the line, that early run could have rattled a young starter.
Instead, Glauber responded with strikeouts. He fanned five of the next seven batters he faced across the second and third innings, stabilizing the game and allowing Carolina’s offense time to regroup.
USC regained the lead in the fourth when Kevin Takeuchi hit a solo home run. Andrew Lamb followed with another solo shot in the fifth, extending the Trojans’ advantage to 3-1. Those swings were damaging, but they did not break the game open. Glauber kept attacking and kept the deficit manageable.
By the end of his outing, he had worked seven innings and struck out 10, matching the kind of poise that has made him one of the most important arms on Carolina’s staff. His 10 strikeouts were the most by a UNC pitcher in an NCAA Tournament game since Patrick Johnson against James Madison in the 2011 Chapel Hill Regional.
In postseason baseball, particularly in an elimination setting, keeping the game close can be as valuable as dominating it. Glauber did not leave with the lead, but he gave Carolina what it needed: innings, strikeouts and a chance.
Jackson Rose and Walker McDuffie followed out of the bullpen, holding USC scoreless over the final two innings. McDuffie earned the win, improving to 8-3, after working the ninth and giving the offense one last chance.
USC Had the Formula Until the Finish
For much of Sunday afternoon, USC looked like a team ready to end one of the most impressive turnaround seasons in program history with a trip to Omaha.
Johnson was composed, efficient and difficult to square up when Carolina needed damage. He held the Tar Heels in check through 7.2 innings and left with the Trojans still in position to win. Takeuchi and Lamb supplied the power, and USC carried a 3-1 lead into the eighth.
The Trojans had already proven their resilience throughout the postseason. They lost the opening game of the College Station Regional, then won four straight to advance. They came to Chapel Hill and stunned North Carolina in Game 1, rallying from a 5-1 deficit to beat the Tar Heels 9-5. Even after Jason DeCaro shut them out Saturday, USC returned Sunday and grabbed control early.
But closing a Super Regional on the road requires one more layer of precision. USC could not find it in the final two innings.
Johnson allowed the back-to-back doubles in the eighth that made it 3-2. In the ninth, the Trojans moved through the bullpen, but command wavered and Carolina’s at-bats sharpened. Nicholson walked. French singled. Schaffner did his job with a sacrifice fly. Gallaher walked. Hull finished it.
USC coach Andy Stankiewicz, whose program ended the season 48-18, acknowledged the pain of the finish while praising his players.
“I’m proud of our boys,” Stankiewicz said. “I’m disappointed in the results, but I’m never disappointed in our guys.”
That was a fair summary of the Trojans’ season. USC reached its first Super Regional in more than two decades, won 48 games and pushed one of the nation’s top seeds to the final out of a three-game series on the road. The loss will sting, but the broader arc of the program under Stankiewicz points upward.
A Series That Turned Twice
The Chapel Hill Super Regional did not settle into a simple pattern. It flipped repeatedly.
On Friday, North Carolina looked poised to control the series. The Tar Heels built a 5-1 lead in the opener before USC’s offense erupted. Dean Carpentier’s grand slam helped the Trojans storm ahead, and USC added enough late offense to take a 9-5 victory. For Carolina, it was an unsettling reminder of the previous year’s Super Regional collapse against Arizona.
Saturday brought the response. DeCaro delivered the pitching performance that changed the series, throwing a complete-game shutout in a 4-0 UNC victory. He scattered two hits, struck out eight and retired the final 10 batters he faced. Carolina, which had been stunned less than 24 hours earlier, suddenly had life again.
Sunday became a test of which team could better absorb the weekend’s swings. USC absorbed Carolina’s Game 2 answer and took another lead. Carolina absorbed the pressure of trailing late and still found a way back.
That is why the final dogpile felt larger than a single game. The Tar Heels had to overcome a series deficit, a late-game deficit and the shadow of last year’s disappointment. They had to win twice after losing the opener. According to UNC, it was the first time the program had won a Super Regional after trailing 0-1 in the series.
The Tar Heels also won a Game 3 of a Super Regional for the first time since 2013. That kind of history matters in a program that has often been close to Omaha but understands how unforgiving the final step can be.
Forbes Adds Another Milestone
Forbes’ 250th win as North Carolina’s head coach came with one of the most significant victories of his tenure. It was not merely a round number. It was a win that returned UNC to the national stage and reinforced the program’s staying power.
Carolina’s baseball tradition is deep, but Omaha trips are never routine. This will be UNC’s ninth Men’s College World Series appearance since 2006, a mark that keeps the Tar Heels among the sport’s most consistent June programs. Reaching Omaha again after last year’s Super Regional heartbreak also speaks to the staff’s ability to rebuild belief quickly.
The roster that will travel to Nebraska is not the same one that left Boshamer in pain last June. But the program’s emotional memory was unmistakably present. Players who returned understood what had slipped away. Newcomers were introduced to the standard immediately. By Sunday evening, all of them had authored a different ending.
Forbes has built his program around pitching, defense and toughness in pressure environments. The Tar Heels did not play flawlessly Sunday — a first-inning balk gave USC the opening run, and the offense spent long stretches searching for a timely hit — but they played with the persistence required to survive postseason baseball.
The ninth inning will be remembered for Hull’s swing, but it was also a reflection of a team that did not chase panic. Nicholson took the walk. French stayed through his at-bat and singled. Schaffner lifted the ball to the outfield. Gallaher kept the inning moving. Hull delivered.
That sequence looked like a team still thinking clearly when the season was one out from ending.
The Bosh Delivers Its Final Push
Boshamer Stadium has become one of college baseball’s most charged postseason venues, and Sunday added another chapter to that reputation. UNC’s official recap called it “Bosh Magic,” a phrase that has come to define late-game postseason moments in Chapel Hill.
The crowd had spent much of the afternoon waiting for a release. USC’s early lead and Johnson’s command kept the game tight, tense and increasingly uncomfortable for the home side. When Winslow’s double hit the wall in the eighth, the park changed. It was not just that Carolina had scored; it was that the Tar Heels had finally forced USC to protect a one-run lead in front of a crowd that sensed vulnerability.
By the ninth, every pitch carried the weight of a season. Nicholson’s walk brought noise. French’s single brought belief. Schaffner’s sacrifice fly brought the roar. Hull’s double brought the avalanche.
Players sprinted from the dugout before the ball had fully settled. Fans rose in waves. The celebration spilled across the infield as Hull’s teammates mobbed him in shallow left-center territory. In that instant, the frustration from Friday, the memory of 2025 and the pressure of a winner-take-all game all disappeared beneath Carolina blue.
What Comes Next in Omaha
North Carolina now turns toward the Men’s College World Series at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, where the Tar Heels will open against Ole Miss. The NCAA will finalize game times as the rest of the field settles, but the championship stage begins June 12.
The Tar Heels will arrive with the kind of momentum that only a walk-off Super Regional can provide, but Omaha quickly resets every storyline. The field is smaller, the margin thinner and the spotlight brighter. Carolina will need the same ingredients that carried it through Chapel Hill: starting pitching that keeps games stable, bullpen command, clean defense and enough timely offense to capitalize when opportunities appear.
The biggest question entering Omaha may be whether Sunday unlocked the Tar Heels’ situational hitting. For much of the USC series, Carolina left too many runners aboard and failed to cash in on bases-loaded and runners-in-scoring-position opportunities. Against elite pitching in Omaha, those chances may be even rarer.
But the final two innings Sunday showed what this lineup can become when it stays connected. Hull was the star, but the rally was not built on one swing alone. Winslow’s double in the eighth was essential. Nicholson’s walk and French’s single in the ninth set the table. Schaffner’s sacrifice fly tied the game. Gallaher’s walk extended pressure. Hull delivered the final blow.
That is the version of Carolina that can travel.
A Defining Win for a Resilient Team
The final score will sit neatly in the record book: North Carolina 4, USC 3. But the game was messier, richer and more significant than that line suggests.
It was a comeback from 3-1 down. It was a Super Regional comeback from 0-1 down. It was a response to a year-old wound. It was a milestone for Forbes. It was a star turn for Hull. It was a freshman starter keeping his team alive under enormous pressure. It was an opposing program, USC, proving its revival is real even in defeat.
Most of all, it was Carolina finding its way back to Omaha by taking the hardest path available.
Friday tested the Tar Heels’ confidence. Saturday restored their belief. Sunday demanded everything left. When the game reached its final moments, North Carolina did not shrink. It worked the count, moved runners, lifted the ball, passed the baton and let the hottest bat in the stadium decide the series.
Hull’s final double will be replayed for years in Chapel Hill, not merely because it won a game, but because of what it reversed. One year after watching another team celebrate on its field, North Carolina turned Boshamer Stadium into the starting point for another Omaha trip.
The Tar Heels are not finished. They are headed west, carrying with them a ninth-inning rally, a renewed sense of belief and the proof that this June, when the season reached its edge, Carolina had one more swing.