OMAHA, NEB. - As it was reported here first, North Carolina plays Rice at 7 p.m. for the right to face Oregon State in this weekend’s NCAA College World Series finals.

Adam Warren will be taking the mound for the Tar Heels in by far the biggest start of his career at UNC. Warren was the savior in North Carolina’s 8-5 win Friday against Mississippi State when he relieved a struggling Robert Woodard and proceeded to throw 4.1 innings of shutout ball. For the year, Warren is 11-0 in 14 appearances with a 1.96 ERA.

And although most of his starts came in mid-week games against lesser opponents, Woodard boasts weekend caliber stuff.

The Tar Heels will be up against Rice’s Matt Langwell, a guy who has split time as a starter and a reliever this year. In 22 appearances, Langwell has compiled an 8-1 record with a 2.11 ERA.

While the pitching matchup will figure to command most of the media’s attention tonight, the bats should decide the outcome.

If Rice is able to return to the form of its first two games in the CWS, then the Owls will probably be the team that advances to play the Beavers. But the 29 runs Rice scored in those two games, was not indicative of Owl hitters this year, however neither was the one-run effort they posted Wednesday.

The Tar Heels on the other hand showed signs late Wednesday that they were returning to the offensive level we’ve seen from them this year. Mainly I’m talking about freshman Dustin Ackley who’s three-run homer in the seventh inning clinched the game for North Carolina. At the same time though, UNC must receive a better effort from catcher Tim Federowicz who is hitless in his last two games, and couldn’t come through in two bases loaded situations.

Whatever team is able to get to the opposing starter first could be the squad that comes out on top.

-David Ely

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.