Heels feel like underdogs at home

Published 7:32 pm Thursday, June 2, 2011

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina can’t help but feel like an underdog in the NCAA baseball tournament č as much of an underdog as a top-eight national seed can be, anyway.

No team has won more NCAA tournament games during the past five years than the Tar Heels, who are one of five Atlantic Coast Conference teams hosting regionals this weekend.

But with much of the focus in the ACC’s footprint on top overall seed Virginia, the No. 3 national seeded Tar Heels feel overlooked.

‘‘I think they kind of took that, like, ’OK, we’ll use that a little bit,’’’ North Carolina associate head coach Scott Forbes said Thursday. ‘‘We feel like we’re pretty dang good. But I think this team also knows that it’s not just going to show up and win. They’re going to have to play in every aspect of the game.’’

North Carolina (45-14) opens regional play Friday night against fourth-seeded Maine (32-22). No. 2 seed Florida International (40-18-1) faces third-seeded James Madison (40-17).

The Tar Heels have won 32 games in the tournament since 2006, when they made the first of four consecutive trips to the College World Series.

If they are to make it to Omaha for a fifth time in six years, the path will likely take them through the No. 2 program on that list č Cal State Fullerton, which has 26 postseason wins in that span. The bracket pairs the winners of the Chapel Hill and Fullerton regionals in next weekend’s best-of-three super regional series.

Of course, North Carolina has plenty of work to do before then, in a regional that includes two conference champions and one of the hottest teams in the country. James Madison won the Colonial Athletic Association tournament while Maine captured the America East crown.

And second-seeded FIU č which boasts shortstop Garrett Wittels, who once hit safely in 56 consecutive games č has lost just twice in its last 23 games. Coach Turtle Thomas’ Panthers lead Division I with 670 hits.

‘‘Just like in football when you’re talking about offense, defense and special teams, if you don’t do one part of it or 1 1/2 parts of it very well, you’re probably going to get beat,’’ Thomas said.

‘‘Same way with us for a while. (Midway through the season) we would pitch and not hit, hit and not pitch, or not play defense or something like that or not run the bases well. So what happened is, we did a better job of hitting, pitching and playing defense, all in the same game.’’

Of the four teams spending the weekend at Boshamer Stadium, James Madison has the best offensive numbers, hitting .321 as a team with 522 runs and 78 homers. North Carolina has the lowest average, hitting just .285.

But the Tar Heels’ pitchers allow the fewest runs, with an ERA of 3.36, and have struck out 537 hitters č nearly 100 more than the second-best pitching staff (FIU, 447).

‘‘This is an extremely hard-working team,’’ Forbes said. ‘‘You deal with results a lot easier when you know how prepared they are. … This group may be the hardest-working group, top to bottom, that we’ve had.’’