Where: Boshamer Stadium, Chapel Hill, NC
When: Friday, June 10th, 3:00 PM
TV: ESPN2
Records: UNC 48-14; Stanford 35-20
NCAA Results: UNC def. Maine 4-0, JMU 14-0 and 9-3; Stanford def. Kansas St. 10-3 Cal St. Fullerton 1-0, Illinois 14-2
A meeting between two teams who did a fair job of beating up the other teams in their regional. UNC cruised through three games in Chapel Hill while Stanford put up 10 runs or more bookending a 1-0 win over the Fullerton Regional's top seed Cal State Fullerton. The Cardinal are a tested team who had three game sets versus national seeds Rice, Vanderbilt and Texas to start the season while facing California multiple times in conference play. The Golden Bears are hosting a Super Regional of their own with a chance at the College World Series. In other words, don't let Stanford's record fool you. They have played a tough schedule and have MLB prospects on the roster not to mentioned being well coached.
For UNC, it is about Patrick Johnson being the pitcher he has been for the past six weeks. The Tar Heels offense, which is not powerful but can chip away at you, will need to maximize every opportunity. A three game series makes for a thin margin of error and wasting your ace in a loss can do untold damage to that margin. Another potential factor is the heat. With this game going off at the worst time of the day for the temperature, the 90-95 degree weather could be an issue. I am not going to read much into what Stanford players might be accustomed to in northern California versus North Carolina. The heat will affect both team probably on nearly equal terms. The impact of the heat could be felt in terms of a listless or sparse crowd however.