UNC baseball pitching meltdown vs Oklahoma at College World Series: What happened?
· Yahoo Sports
OMAHA, Neb. — UNC baseball’s pitching is a reason it played for a national championship.
Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, it was also a reason they lost the national championship in a 13-2 defeat against Oklahoma at the 2026 College World Series. In the Heels' 2026 season finale, UNC coach Scott Forbes said they "ran out of gas" against the Sooners (43-23), who won their first national title since 1994.
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UNC (54-14-1), which entered the CWS finale with the eighth-best ERA in the nation at 3.89, matched its most runs allowed in a game this season in the program’s worst NCAA Tournament loss since a 14-2 defeat against Texas A&M in 1993.
Things started to unravel for the Tar Heels in the fourth inning after three straight walks issued by UNC sophomore reliever Walker McDuffie. After throwing two more pitches for balls, McDuffie was pulled and freshman Caden Glauber inherited a 2-0 count.
Glauber thought he had one more warm-up pitch before home plate umpire Billy Van Raaphorst stopped him before that final throw. The third ball of the at-bat came after a pitch clock violation and eventually resulted in the fourth straight walk of the frame.
That bases-loaded base on balls gave Oklahoma a 4-1 lead and Jaxon Willits, the CWS MVP, followed with a two-run single to push the Sooners’ lead to five runs. Glauber exited and gave the ball to co-captain Matthew Matthijs.
“I felt like they didn't give (Glauber) enough time. I'm not going to come up here and talk about that part of it at this point. All these guys, the one thing they did is they gave everything they had. And obviously, Oklahoma made us pay,” said Forbes, who used eight pitchers, five of whom gave up runs.
“We walked too many, but none of these guys were trying to walk anybody. I mean, Glaub, we knew was going to be a short stint, maybe 15 pitches. And everybody went out there. They gave it all they had, we just ran out of gas, when it's all said and done.”
Only 60% of UNC’s pitches were strikes in the finale against the Sooners, who scored runs in five straight innings and racked up multiple runs in four frames. In addition to 14 hits, including two home runs and a double, Oklahoma got eight walks and one batter was hit by a pitch as the Sooners went on to earn their record ninth win over a national seed in the tournament.
“I think they just take advantage of your mistakes,” Matthijs said of Oklahoma’s offense. “You make a mistake in the zone, they're going to hit it pretty well.”
Rodd Baxley covers North Carolina Tar Heels athletics for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding UNC? Send them to [email protected].
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: UNC baseball pitching meltdown vs Oklahoma at College World Series