UNC Snags #1 National Seed in Baseball

The Tar Heel baseball team, fresh off sweeping both the ACC regular season and tournament championships, was awarded the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Baseball Tournament. As one of eight national seeds, North Carolina will have home field advantage in both the regional and super regional rounds should they advance.

The Heels were 44-4 through early May but then hit a rough patch losing four of their next seven games. That stretch included losses in back-to-back weekend series. UNC righted the ship after that getting a huge win over Florida State to end the regular season before winning four straight at the ACC Tournament to take the league title. North Carolina enters the NCAA Tournament at 52-8 overall.

Here is the full list of national seeds. The full bracket can be found here.

1. North Carolina
2. Vanderbilt
3. Oregon St.
4. LSU
5. Cal State Fulleton
6. Virginia
7. Florida St.
8. Oregon

NC State did not get a national seed but is targeted to face Oregon if both teams advance out of the regional round. That placement effectively makes NC State the #9 overall seed. NC State's absence from the national seeds is a tad surprising, especially since FSU lost four straight games last week. Should both UNC and NCSU reach Omaha, they would face each other in the opening game. Also of note is the presence in the national seeds of two old CWS nemeses for UNC in Vanderbilt and Oregon St.

The first order of business for the Heels is Chapel Hill regional, something they did not do a year ago. UNC will open with Canisius with Towson and Florida Atlantic on the other side of the bracket four team bracket.

#1 North Carolina vs #4 Canisius

#2 Towson vs #3 Florida Atlantic

UNC has not faced any of the teams in their regional this season. Should the Heels advance, they would play the winner coming out of the Columbia regional which includes South Carolina, Clemson, Liberty and St. Louis.

The game schedule for regional play will be released later this week.