Friday, Virginia and No. 8 North Carolina begin a three-game series down in Chapel Hill, N.C. A premier college baseball rivalry, these two teams face off for the first time since the 2024 season — and a lot has changed since then.
The Tar Heels are currently ranked and led by a superb pitching staff. That description is status quo for their program. The Cavaliers, however, are in a new situation. The clean-shaven Coach Brian O’Connor is gone and the bearded Coach Chris Pollard is the new head skipper. Pollard’s team is still figuring itself out, and will face its first Power Four opponent in Chapel Hill.
But before these ACC foes give battle, one must first understand the importance of this matchup, by traveling back to the previous one.
The last time Virginia and North Carolina met on the baseball diamond was June 14, 2024, in the College World Series. Every game in Omaha, Neb. matters. This one was especially consequential.
This postseason duel was a tight affair for most of the game, as neither team led by more than one run at any point. The final inning was no different. Entering the bottom of the ninth, the Cavaliers sought to keep a tie intact and play extra innings.
Junior reliever Chase Hungate was the pitcher of choice for then-Coach Brian O’Connor. Hungate allowed a leadoff double to senior infielder Jackson Van De Brake before inducing consecutive groundouts. Virginia was one out away from earning another chance to hit. But the next Tar Heel batter was junior outfielder Vance Honeycutt — nicknamed “Honeyclutch” for his frequent late-game heroics.
O’Connor had two open bases to walk not only Honeycutt, but also sophomore outfielder Casey Cook, who was 3-4 hitting in the game. O’Connor did not see the situation that way. O’Connor let Honeycutt hit, and the result was a walk-off single that sent Virginia into the loser’s bracket.
The College World Series operates in double elimination fashion, so the Cavaliers were not booted until they lost to Florida State two days later. Regardless, a one-run loss to rival North Carolina took the air out of Virginia’s tires.
Would the Cavaliers have staved off elimination had they beaten the Tar Heels and stayed in the winner’s bracket? The answer is complicated, as Virginia would have had to defeat the Seminoles and eventual champion Tennessee. If the Cavaliers had gone on to win a game or two, though, 2025 could have been slightly different.
In a chain reaction, what if O’Connor came close to a national title in 2024, added more talent in the transfer portal and produced a better 2025 season? Would he have stayed in Charlottesville instead of leaving for Mississippi State? Maybe things would have played out differently. However, 2025 ended up as a sour ending to the fruitful O’Connor era — a sorrowful dissolution away from a program that won it all back in 2015 and never returned to the CWS championship series.
The Cavaliers have not faced the Tar Heels since that fatal day. The ACC has 17 teams for a schedule that only has nine conference series, so there was no matchup between these two programs in 2025.
2025 featured vastly different results for each team. Virginia, ranked No. 2 preseason and missed the NCAA Tournament in a shocking collapse. Meanwhile, North Carolina hosted a super regional. In the Chapel Hill Super Regional against Arizona, the Tar Heels won the opening game 18-2 but lost the final two games of the three-game series by a combined three runs.
Now, in 2026, O’Connor coaches at a different program and the Cavaliers are led by Pollard — the longtime leader of North Carolina’s archnemesis. Two years ago, this situation would have seemed near-impossible. No one could have imagined O’Connor would leave Charlottesville. Many within the Duke program may have thought the same of Pollard.
And now Virginia meets the Tar Heels once again, in this new situation that started just nine months ago.
Most of the authors of North Carolina’s Omaha win — including Honeycutt and Cook — are gone. The only 2024 starters still with the Tar Heels are junior infielder Gavin Gallaher and junior pitcher Jason DeCaro.
For the Cavaliers, the only remaining 2024 starters are senior outfielder Harrison Didawick and junior infielder Eric Becker.
The rest of these rosters are not new to this rivalry, though. Pollard’s star catcher with the Blue Devils, junior Macon Winslow, opted to transfer to his in-state Tar Heels instead of following Pollard to Virginia this past offseason. Winslow now hits .386 with an incredible .532 on base percentage for the team in powder blue.
Winslow has performed extremely well — and there is another North Carolina slugger who has shined even brighter. That other star is junior infielder Erik Paulsen, a transfer from Stony Brook hitting .413 with five home runs. North Carolina also features Jake Schaffner, junior infielder and North Dakota State transfer, who boasts a .467 batting average.
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers have a more balanced offense with six players hitting at least .275. Leading the way is superstar junior outfielder AJ Gracia — a Duke transfer familiar with his upcoming opponent — hitting .400 with six home runs so far in 2026.
The Cavaliers and Tar Heels will get things started Friday at 4:00 p.m. Sophomore southpaw Henry Zatkowski will take the mound for Virginia against DeCaro and North Carolina. DeCaro is currently 3-0 with a 1.00 earned run average in three appearances.
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