CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—As soon as Cal Poly’s Cam Hoiland swung and miss at the last of Matthew Martinez’s 9th-inning changeups on Sunday night in Eugene, capping off a 14-0 win, there were cheers from the crowd and the dugout as the entire team gathered to celebrate the victory.
It didn’t look like the reaction you’d expect after winning a regional title, the program’s first in four years and following back-to-back 0-2 showings in the NCAA Tournament.
That’s because, as big an accomplishment as this was, bigger goals were still to be achieved.
“I said it through the handshake line, job’s not finished,” Brendan Summerhill said Tuesday, the day before the Wildcats boarded another plane to head to the Super Regionals. “This is step one, and we still feel like there’s a lot more baseball to be played this season. Not two more games or three more games, we’ve got business to take care of.”
Arizona (42-18) plays in its first Super Regional since 2021 starting Friday at 9 a.m. PT with the first of up to three games with No. 5 seed North Carolina (45-13) at Boshamer Stadium. The best-of-3 series will send the winner to Omaha for the College World Series.
Winners of eight in a row, the second-longest active streak in the country behind No. 13 seed Coastal Carolina’s 21, the UA has the daunting task of trying to beat one of the top pitching staffs in the country on their own field. UNC is 28-7 at home this season, the only weekend it lost more than once coming in March when it dropped two of three to Stanford.
“They just do everything well,” UA coach Chip Hale said of the Tar Heels, who are seeking a second straight CWS bid. “Their pitchers, just look at their numbers, ERAs are low, a lot of quality hitters, so it’s gonna be a gonna be a great, great series. They’re gonna play hardball and they’re gonna come at you.”
Of Arizona’s five previous Super Regional appearances since the format was introduced in 1999, three have come on the road. The Wildcats have taken the opening game in each of those, winning in three games at Long Beach State in 2004 and in two at Mississippi State in 2016 while falling in three at Miami in 2008.
The Wildcats have more or less been on the road for almost a month, their last home game coming May 11. Since then they’ve played in Houston, Arlington and Eugene, with only brief trips back to Tucson after the Big 12 Tournament and regionals.
“It just feels like another weekend, just another road series,” shortstop Mason White said. “It’s a band brothers on the road, and it feels like when we go out there, like we’re going off to war, we’re leaving Tucson, we’re gonna get it done and come back and then go out for the next one. So it’s really gotten us a lot closer than before.”
White, MVP of both the Eugene Regional and Big 12 tourney, is hitting .464 during the win streak with seven home runs and 14 RBI. He’s one extra-base hit from breaking the school career record set by Dave Stegman from 1973-76 and has a hit in 16 of 18 career postseason games.
North Carolina, which needed an extra game to win its regional last weekend, has the third-lowest ERA in the country at 3.39. Leading the charge is 6th-year right-hander Jake Knapp, the Heels’ Game 1 starter who is 13-0 with a 1.98 ERA. He has gone at least seven innings in his last four starts and has not allowed more than three earned runs in an outing.
Sophomore Owen Kramkowski (9-5, 4.73) will start the opener for the UA, coming off a 7-inning effort against Cal Poly in the regional opener. Senior Raul Garayzar (2-0, 2.54) will throw Game 2 and, if necessary, freshman Smith Bailey (3-3, 3.97) will throw Sunday.
Arizona scored 28 runs in the final two games of the regional, most of that coming via 14 homers including a school-record eight against Utah Valley. The Wildcats have averaged 1.47 homers per game away from home compared to 0.9 at Hi Corbett Field, and Boshamer Stadium is on the small side, but UNC pitchers have only allowed 36 homers in 35 games there.
“We just have to just be able to see the ball and hit it,” Hale said.
The Wildcats have shown the ability to win low-scoring games during their streak, beating TCU 2-1 in 10 innings and then outlasting Cal Poly 3-2 in the regional opener. The starting pitching has been a big part of that but so has the bullpen, particularly the back end.
Tony Pluta, the school’s first finalist for the NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award, has a school record-tying 13 saves and hasn’t allowed a run since April 1, while the duo of Hunter Alberini and Julian Tonghini have combined for 76 strikeouts in 45 innings. Their performances have made it so Arizona is 31-0 when leading after six innings and 36-0 taking a lead into the 9th.
“I think it’s just being ready when your name gets called, whenever (pitching coach Kevin) Vance makes that call or makes that decision, just being ready to go from pitch one,” Tonghini said. “It all starts in your preparation. Showing up to practice every day and sticking to our margins and doing all the drills that we do beforehand, into our catch play, onto the mound and taking it one pitch at a time. It’s one pitch at a time, and whatever the pitch we get on that PitchCom, we throw it with 100 percent conviction.”
Arizona/UNC is the first Super Regional series to start, and if it goes only two games could be over before others begin on Saturday. The early start—noon local but three hours earlier back in Tucson—is similar to what the Wildcats dealt with in the Big 12 quarterfinals when it played at the equivalent of 7 a.m. back home.
“Our guys have done it before, which is really good, it’s a really good situation that we’ve done it before,” Hale said. “I don’t expect it to (affect us), that’s just another excuse, and this team’s been really good about not making excuses.”
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