UNC Caps Regular Season With Resounding Series Win at Duke

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DURHAM, N.C. — North Carolina finished its most successful baseball regular season in seven years on an especially high note Saturday afternoon.

The Tar Heels decked Duke 14-6 here at Coombs Field to win the rivalry series in booming fashion and gather more momentum for the approaching postseason.

Casey Cook and Alberto Osuna delivered some of the biggest blows, as UNC piled on the runs and rolled in this rubber match against the Blue Devils. Cook cranked a three-run homer in the eighth inning and supplied five RBI, as Carolina kept the pedal down through the later stages.

UNC surpassed the 40-victory threshold in the regular season for the first time since 2017. But series victories on the road have proven elusive for the Tar Heels (41-12 overall, 22-8 ACC), who dropped two out of three games in road assignments at Miami, Virginia and NC State, while sandwiching a road sweep of Wake Forest at the end of March along the way.

Carolina improved to 4-6 away from home since early April with Saturday's convincing result at Duke, a day after scoring twice in its dramatic last time at-bat to crack open a tie game in the ninth inning and overcome the Blue Devils. Ultimately, these last two games of the series became a bounce-back effort from the Tar Heels, who went just 4-for-30 at the plate during Thursday night's series opener, and lost to Duke by a 5-3 score.

"I think this team is tough," UNC coach Scott Forbes said Saturday. "They definitely play with a chip on their shoulder. A lot of people have said that a lot of teams are better than us, especially in this league. We feel like we've got a lot of tradition. We've got a great program, and these guys want to continue to prove that. But at the end of the day, we've done something, but we really haven't done something. And that's the message that I'll tell our guys, 'move on and let's start back tomorrow.' We'll meet up and get after it this week."

Now, UNC turns its attention to the postseason and next week's ACC Tournament at Truist Field in Charlotte, N.C., home of the Class AAA Charlotte Knights. On Friday here at Duke's 93-year-old park, the Tar Heels, who already had claimed the league's Coastal Division title, captured the second game of this series to secure the best conference record in the ACC this season and clinch the No. 1 seed in the tournament for the first time since 2018.

UNC's pod for the pool play format in Charlotte will include the tournament's Nos. 8 and 12 seeds. The full pairings and schedule for the ACC Tournament are expected to be set on Saturday night. Pool play begins Tuesday.

"Coach Forbes pulled us aside and just told us to treat it like a super regional (in the NCAA Tournament), and after that it kind of sparked us up," Osuna said Saturday, about the Tar Heels' response after falling to Duke in the opening game of this series. "So I think today coming in, we knew we just had to attack from the start and that's exactly what we did."

UNC teammates greet Casey Cook on Saturday afternoon at Coombs Field. (Photo: Jim Hawkins / Inside Carolina)

Carolina erupted for seven runs in the top of the third inning on Saturday, with Osuna's bases-clearing double producing a big bang in an inning full of them. The slugger Osuna greeted newly inserted Duke reliever Jimmy Romano by hammering his second pitch for a 6-1 lead, prompting "Tar!" "Heels!" chants from the many UNC supporters among the crowd at this old place. The Blue Devils (35-18, 16-14) used seven pitchers on the afternoon.

Earlier in the top of the third, Cook slapped a two-run single through the left side of the infield with the bases loaded, moving Carolina ahead to stay at 2-1. And for the first time during this series, the Tar Heels weren't tasked with climbing out of an early deficit.

"We weren't really doing what we're capable of doing the first day, and then we started getting a little hot the second day," Cook said, assessing the series. "And then this is what we're capable of doing. So it's good to see it all come together in the last game."

Alex Madera and Luke Stevenson drove in two runs apiece, and Anthony Donofrio doubled twice for UNC, which built a 11-2 lead in the fifth inning. Cook's leadoff double helped set the table there. Donofrio followed with a run-scoring double, and Stevenson launched a two-run triple off the left-field wall, a towering shot beyond the outstretched reach of Duke outfielder Kyle Johnson.

Matthew Matthijs (12-4) picked up his ACC-leading 12th pitching victory in relief of UNC starter Aidan Haugh, who supplied six strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings of work, while giving up four hits, three runs and three walks. The group of Ben Peterson, Matt Poston, Cameron Padgett and Kyle Percival handled the final three innings out of the Tar Heels' bullpen.

"We wanted to win this series against a rival, and make that statement," Forbes said. "Because at the end of the day, to move forward and get to where you want to get, you've got to win series. And if you're fortunate to get to Omaha (the College World Series), you've got to continue to win series, so that's what we're trying to do."

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Logan Bravo's run-scoring single pulled Duke within 11-6. Bravo homered in all three games of this series. On Saturday, he took Haugh deep in the third inning for his 17th home run of the season.

Meanwhile, Cook again was cooking for Carolina at the plate. His three hits on Saturday moved him to 5-for-9 with seven RBI across the last two games of this series. In the top of the eighth, after Duke reliever Aidan Weaver walked UNC's Colby Wilkerson and Vance Honeycutt, Cook blasted a 98 mph fastball from Weaver out to right field for his 16th home run of the season. Cook leads the Tar Heels with 73 RBI.

"The harder they throw, the slower you've got to be," he said. "You don't have to do as much, so I feel it's something I've always been pretty good at. A lot of times you want to get jumpy off those guys, you want to go, like, meet their intensity. But you've just got to be slower."

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