CWS Recap: North Carolina, Oklahoma Advance to Finals

The College World Series championship is set! The North Carolina Tar Heels will take on the Oklahoma Sooners in this year’s CWS finals, and what a journey it’s been to get there for both squads.

Let’s recap how each team got there and look ahead to what should be an epic showdown to cap off the tournament.

North Carolina Takes Down West Virginia

With the Mountaineers’ season on the line in an elimination game against North Carolina, Steve Sabins handed the ball over to sophomore right-hander Chansen Cole.

Cole made his Omaha debut against Troy on Friday where the Trojans took advantage early and often, racking up four earned on seven hits and ending his day before getting out of the third inning.

There haven’t been many as good as Cole over the 2026 campaign. With a 10-1 record, 108 punchouts and a 3.14 ERA over 97 ⅓ innings of work, West Virginia was 18-2 when the righty toes the rubber.

Junior southpaw Folger Boaz would be tasked with holding down a dynamic West Virginia offense, coming into the day with a 7.03 ERA with opponents hitting .332 against him. The glaring hole in the armor for Boaz is his strikeout-to-walk ratio of just 2.03.

The first inning was nothing short of a nightmare start for the Mountaineers. Cole issued a leadoff walk to Wisconsin native Jake Schaffner, who would steal second and score on an RBI-double coming off the bat at 107 mph by center fielder Owen Hull, who would eventually score on a stolen base and error by Ty Hall.

With the season on the line, Steve Sabins got the bullpen moving early with Ian Korn in an effort to keep the game within striking distance as the Heels built a 2-0 buffer for Boaz.

It was a similar start for the West Virginia offense, drawing a leadoff walk then a single from Gavin Kelly. The damage would be held at one run delivered from a Matthew Graveline knock as Boaz stranded a pair in scoring position, ending his short outing with a lead.

What seemed like an odd decision at the time paid dividends for the Tar Heels; They turned the ball over to true freshman Jackson Rose, who stole the show by taking over and providing four-plus scoreless innings in his first College World Series appearance. The Tar Heels turned it into a full-blown blowout.

Head coach Scott Forbes discussed the pitching change decision: “Every out is vital, that was a hard game to win and they made a run at us. I told Folger ‘hey, you still got us three outs, so keep your confidence, you’re going to have to pitch for us to win this thing.’”

Following a scoreless second, the Tar Heels turned over their lineup into an eerily-similar start. The leadoff walk of Jake Schaffner would come around to score again on an RBI-single from Gavin Gallaher, ending Chansen Cole’s day after just 2 ⅓ innings of work while the Mountaineers stared down the barrel of a 3-1 deficit while Ian Korn took over the pitching duties.

A wind-aided pop up that dropped for an Erik Paulsen single led to a bases-clearing triple off the bat of Cooper Nicholson, extending the Heels lead to 5-1.

The Mountaineers struggled to get anything going, plagued by errors and miscues while the Tar Heels took advantage of each one to further extend their lead. Another Hull double following a botched double play ball ultimately led to yet another multi-run inning from UNC, going up 8-1 capped off by a Gallaher two-RBI single.

The heart of the order for the Tar Heels paved the path to the College World Series finals, as the trio of Hull, Gallaher, and Paulsen went 11-15 with seven RBI including three extra-base hits.

“I’m speechless,” Gavin Gallaher discussed on the opportunity to compete for a National Championship. “We were here in ‘24 and came close, last year we were one inning from Omaha… so to be back here, win our first three games and be back in the National Championship is truly amazing.”

The very last thing you’d expect from a Steve Sabins’ Mountaineers club is to roll over. An eruption happened in the seventh inning against North Carolina’s bullpen, punching in five runs on five hits all with two outs to cut the deficit in half.

They’d force the Tar Heels’ hand into bringing in Caden Glauber, who stopped the bleeding with a perfect backdoor slider to strikeout Ben Lumsden.

West Virginia would tack on one more in the eighth before seeing their season end in defeat by a score of 12-7.

“You never want to go down, if you’re going to go down, for me, being down 12-1, scratching and clawing and fighting and running out of gas giving literally everything you have left in the tank to compete is poetic.”

“These kids stuck together through thick and thin and adversity, and what they were able to accomplish gave hope and belief to a university, I’m so thankful for these kids,” West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins discussed on seeing the best season in West Virginia program history come to a close.

“They’re a tough group, they want to win and put winning first and over everything else.” North Carolina head coach Scott Forbes discussed the similarities of this group compared to the 2006 and 2007 teams in the National Championship.

North Carolina advances to the College World Series championship, hunting their first program title in 13 appearances in Omaha.

Oklahoma Wallops Georgia

In surprising fashion, Georgia would roll out Paul Farley, making his fourth start of the season, most notably in the SEC championship game where he bowled four shutout innings against Arkansas — also his last appearance.

On the flip, Skip Johnson kept the freshman-phenom theme rolling, throwing Nick Wesloski, making his second start of the season — his first coming in a regional game against The Citadel.

Despite the glaring lack of experience in a starting role, neither arm seemed affected by the stage or lights they stepped into, cruising through the first two innings.

The scoring would start with leadoff hitter Jason Walk. Despite his 5-foot-10, 166-lb frame, he crushed his fifth home run of the season 416 feet to dead center field to put the Sooners up in the third.

Farley would get tagged again by the long ball when Trey Gambill took a fastball and deposited it into the right field bullpen. Just two hitters later, Dasan Harris crushed a 431-foot moonshot into the Omaha skies for his fifth home run, as the unlikely heroes came to play for the red-hot Sooners.

Farley’s day would end there, turning the ball over to Matt Scott to stop the bleeding. But the Dawgs would be staring a 4-0 deficit in the face having only strung along one hit against Nick Wesloski through four innings.

As much as we want to act surprised, we shouldn’t be at yet another masterclass put on by the Sooners’ freshman starter. He silenced one of the deepest lineups in the country by going 5 ⅔ innings allowing one earned run striking out four.

Georgia scraped across their first run of the game in the fifth with back-to-back hits from Kolby Branch and Ryan Black. Wesloski would immediately shut down the Dawgs threat, carving through Tre Phelps and potential Golden Spikes Award Winner Daniel Jackson to escape any further threat.

Oklahoma responded right back, manufacturing a run by Dasan Harris, who put a ball in play with the infield in. The Sooners were the beneficiary of ultra-aggressive baserunning to wipe any progress Georgia had made the inning prior.

With two runners on and two outs in the sixth, Georgia finally chased Wesloski as Skip Johnson made the call to the pen for LJ Mercurius, needing just one out to avoid any damage.

Following an infield error with two outs, the bases-loaded, full-count scenario presented itself to Gold Glove shortstop Kolby Branch, who worked a walk to bring in Georgia’s second run of the day. Still threatening with Ryan Black up and an opportunity to tie it, he worked a clutch four-pitch walk to bring the game to 5-3, turning the lineup over.

Mercurius, with all the pressure on, got Phelps to roll over, moving the game into the final third while preserving the lead. The Sooners continued to do what they’ve done all postseason, tacking on another run on a Jaxon Willits RBI-double.

From then on, it was all Sooners. The unlikely duo of Jason Walk and Dasan Harris, who had eight home runs combined over 337 at-bats coming into the day, combined for four home runs — two apiece — and seven RBI.

Oklahoma continues their team-of-destiny run, having now beat the ACC Champion Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Regional, Big 12 Champion Kansas Jayhawks in the Super Regional, and now SEC Champion Georgia Bulldogs.

In a sport where anything can happen, Oklahoma feels as close to invincible as you can get. They’ll line up with North Carolina for a shot at a National Championship.