North Carolina tops Oklahoma, forces Game 3 of College World Series finals

OMAHA, Neb. — One more day. The College World Series is headed for a winner-take-all Monday night finale. North Carolina evened the best-of-three finals Sunday with a 6-2 win against Oklahoma. The Tar Heels (54-13-1) snapped the Sooners’ nine-game winning streak in the postseason and will play on the final day of the college baseball season to win the first national championship in the history of the ACC program. OU (42-23) is seeking its third title and first since 1994. Phenom reliever Caden Glauber, the ACC Freshman of the Year, pitched a pristine final five innings to earn his school-record-tying 12th victory without a loss for UNC. North Carolina improved to 29-0 when the 18-year-old flamethrower appears on the mound. A 6-foot-4 right-hander from Fort Mill, S.C., Glauber mixed a 95-mph fastball with a diving slider to baffle OU hitters. The Sooners had hit 28 postseason home runs — 31 percent of their season total — in 11 games since the end of the SEC tournament. Against Glauber, they managed one hit. He entered from the bullpen to face the first batter in the bottom of the fifth inning after North Carolina starter Ryan Lynch started Kyle Branch with two balls. Glauber delivered a ball to Branch, then struck him out on three consecutive pitches. He followed with back-to-back strikeouts of OU leadoff man Jason Walk and Camden Johnson. And just like that, the game had changed. North Carolina erased a 2-0 deficit with three runs in the third against Oklahoma freshman Xander Mercurius. The Sooners have started true freshmen on the mound in seven consecutive games, including all five in Omaha. Mercurius uncorked a run-scoring wild pitch, walked two Tar Heels and hit another in the third, while also surrendering three hits. Jake Schaffner’s two-run triple tied the game, 2-2, and wrested control from the Sooners, who had trailed after only two of 56 innings since Super Regional play began on June 26. First baseman Erik Paulsen collected three hits for the Tar Heels on Father’s Day. His teammates’ dads, seated behind North Carolina’s first-base dugout, wore pins with Paulsen’s No. 44 to commemorate Paulsen’s father, Erik Sr., a former NYPD detective who died of throat cancer last year on July 4. The Tar Heels faced elimination Sunday for the second time in this postseason. They beat USC 4-3 in the third game of a Super Regional on June 7, scoring twice in the bottom of the ninth inning. Glauber started that game and struck out 11 in 7 1/3 innings. He fanned eight over five innings of work Sunday against the Sooners and threw 65 pitches. The workload in Game 2 of the championship series likely removes Glauber from the mix for North Carolina on Monday night. But there was no tomorrow for the Tar Heels without the third-inning comeback and Glauber’s dominance to hold the lead.