April 13, 2008

By Adam Lucas

CLEMSON--As twenty-five happy Tar Heels packed their belongings in the dugout of Clemson's Doug Kingsmore Stadium after Sunday's 8-4 win over the Tigers, pitching coach Scott Forbes could be heard over the sound of bats clanking and gloves slapping.

"That was all about team, fellas!" he said. "Team, team, team."

That's the perfect way to describe Carolina's history-making sweep this weekend. Pick your favorite stat: it was UNC's first-ever series victory in Clemson. It was the first time they've won two games in Clemson since the ACC was formed in 1954. It was the first time Clemson had been swept at home since Florida State did it in 2002. It was only the second time in program history the Tar Heels have ever swept the Tigers at any location.

"It says a lot," said second baseman Kyle Seager, who had eight RBI for the weekend--Clemson's entire team also had eight RBI for the weekend. "It says we're a team to be reckoned with. But we haven't arrived by any means."

That might be Seager's first misstep of the weekend, because two straight College World Series trips, an Atlantic Coast Conference tournament title, and back-to-back division titles in the nation's toughest college baseball conference suggest the Tar Heels might well have arrived. What's encouraging is that they don't seem to act like it.

The way they've arrived is impressive because it's been achieved with a constantly changing cast of characters. It started with a pair of stars, Daniel Bard and Andrew Miller, who then passed the torch to Josh Horton, Reid Fronk, and Andrew Carignan. Even over the last two wildly successful seasons, however, Carolina has not had such a complete, top-to-bottom performance in a difficult road environment.

Twenty-five players made the long bus ride to Clemson. All except for Patrick Johnson (who is the primary weekday starter and warmed up some on Sunday), Logan Munson (who warmed up several times on Sunday and was a pitch or two from being in the game), Ryan Graepel (who very nearly got the start on Sunday at designated hitter), and Mike McKee (the locker room heartbeat of the Tar Heels), made substantial contributions to at least one of the weekend's three victories.

Stars like Seager, who pounded three home runs for the weekend, will get most of the attention. But it was also a weekend for players like Greg Holt, who got just his fourth start of the year in the series finale and picked up a single and key RBI. And for the Tar Heel bullpen, which went a legitimate six deep with no change in effectiveness.

In the second game, it was Colin Bates providing a Hovis-like 2.2 innings of spotless relief, including wriggling out of a first-and-third with no outs jam. Sunday, with Bates gassed, it was a series of Rob Catapano, Nate Striz, Brian Moran, Rob Wooten, and Tyler Trice combining to throw eight innings in relief of Matt Harvey and giving up just one earned run while striking out nine.

"Our bullpen has been phenomenal for us all year long, especially the last two days," Mike Fox said. "You have to give those guys credit for their hard work. I've probably not had a bullpen that was this good for this long and with this kind of depth."

With options dwindling on a day that had seen two freshmen and two sophomores take the mound over the first seven innings, Fox turned to a pair of seniors--Wooten and Trice--to close out the sweep. Wooten, pitching admirably while battling the flu, made it two-thirds of an inning. Then, with runners on first and second and Carolina clinging to an 8-4 lead, the Tar Heels turned to Trice.

"Get ready," Forbes told him in the eighth. "I don't know when we're coming to you, but we're probably going to come to you."

After a metal bat hit loaded the bases, Trice faced the middle of the Tiger order.

"We wanted to go after them," Trice said, perfectly summing up the philosophy of the nation's leading pitching staff.

Ten pitches later, Trice had fanned both Wilson Boyd and Doug Hogan to end the inning.

"They were," Trice said, "the biggest outs of my life."

"Trice is a perfect example of a guy who came into our program and kept working," Fox said. "He's a senior who patiently waited his turn and didn't get mad or upset when we ran other guys out there the last two days...It emphasizes the team part of this game. When you're playing a three-game series, anything can happen. We may use everybody on the roster."

For some programs, perhaps using everybody on the roster is a sign of desperation. For Carolina, at least for this weekend, it was a sign of depth, confidence, and yes--a little bit of history.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.