UNC's Strengths and Weaknesses Ahead of Super Regional
West Virginia baseball has a tall task ahead of them as they enter unfamiliar territory this weekend.
The Mountaineers are set to make their first Super Regional appearance in school history this weekend, as they will travel to face No. 4 overall seed North Carolina. The winner of the best-of-three series goes to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
If West Virginia is going to want to upset the Tar Heels, they are going to have to once again rely on their pitching, and try to get to a susceptible UNC pitching staff.
Vance Honeycutt
What JJ Wetherholt is to West Virginia is what Vance Honeycutt is to North Carolina. Honeycutt is arguably the best outfielder in the country, and is an elite defender who hits at the top of the North Carolina batting order.
This season, Honeycutt has blasted 24 home runs, drove in 62 runs, while hitting .309. He also stole 28 bases while only getting thrown out three times. However, Honeycutt can strikeout at a higher clip than most. He struck out 78 times this season which led the Tar Heels, and in the regional round he had eight strikeouts and only three hits. Don't get it twisted though, Honeycutt is the real deal and then some.
Elite Lineup
It is not every day you see a team that out of their starting nine hitters has six of those nine hitters batting at least .309. It's also not every day their best hitter by average is slotted in the seven-spot in the lineup.
Gavin Gallaher leads UNC with a .348 average, but doesn't have the best power numbers, hitting eight home runs and driving in 37. UNC's top four though of Honeycutt, Casey Cook, Parks Harber, and Anthony Donofrio, might be one of the toughest combination of four hitters in the country.
Cook hits .345 with 18 home runs and a team-leading 76 RBIs, while Harber has 20 homers and a .343 average, followed by Donofrio who has a .344 average, with 19 doubles and 18 steals on 20 attempts this season.
UNC is deep and they're talented in their lineup. They can smash the ball out of the ballpark, but they can also hit singles and run the bases well. It's going to be tough to keep them off the scoreboard like WVU did to Dallas Baptist and Grand Canyon in games one and two last weekend.
Swing and Miss
The bright lights and bigger stage bring out better opponents, but for UNC, they saw some of their best hitters struggle in their regional this past weekend.
The Tar Heels had a comeback win in game on over LIU, and then played LSU three times over the next three days. They took two of three from the Tigers, winning 6-2, falling 8-4, and then winning 4-3 in extra innings on Monday.
However, Carolina's starting lineup combined to have 43 strikeouts in the four games played. That is almost 11 strikeouts per game as a lineup, while as a team, they are striking out 8.3 times per game this season.
Can you get them to swing and miss — it seems likely. Could it also be the moment somewhat taking hitters out of their normal approach — that's to be determined.
Pitching Depth
The best thing to have this time of year for any ball club is depth on the mound and Carolina deployed 10 pitchers across their four games this past weekend.
Out of the 10, only half of them tossed at least 3.0 innings. UNC had to adjust to injuries, losing two weekend arms earlier this season. They rely upon Jason DeCaro and Shea Sprague as their two main starters.
DeCaro threw 6.0 innings in two appearances this past weekend, giving up five earned runs, on only four hits. He walked four and struck out three. Sprague threw once, pitching 4.1 innings, walking two and striking out three.
Outside of that, two of their main relief arms were Matthew Matthijs and Dalton Pence. Matthijs tossed 6.1 innings in two appearances and surrendered only one run on four hits, striking out four. Pence, who has a 2.15 ERA in 50.1 innings pitched this season, threw a combined 8.1 innings across three appearances this past weekend. He struck out 10, walked three, gave up two earned runs and three hits.
Overall, there is depth, but as was the case last weekend, runs can be scored on this team. They allowed a combined 21 runs across four games, which was the second-most out of all 16 teams playing this weekend. They were only behind Evansville, who gave up 36 runs, while the closest team to UNC was Florida, giving up 17 runs.
In comparison, eight of the 16 teams remaining gave up fewer than 10 runs last weekend, including West Virginia, who gave up nine.
Schedule
Friday: 6:00 p.m. — ESPN2
Saturday: 8:00 p.m. — ESPN2
Sunday: (if necessary): 3:00 p.m. — ESPN2
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