OMAHA, Neb. – Scott Forbes will tell you that it takes a little more to win in Omaha than it does just to make it to here, and making it to Omaha isn’t easy.
Minutes after his team battled against one of the top pitching prospects in college baseball, Forbes was all smiles as he met with the media, his team never having lost faith against Ole Miss and Taylor Rabe, a redshirt sophomore with a fastball that reached 99 mph in the early innings who was nearly untouchable on Friday night.
So, too, was North Carolina starter Jason Decaro, who threw a complete game shutout in his last outing, a 4-0 win against Southern California in the Chapel Hill Super Regional.
The bout between Rabe and Decaro was the kind of pitcher’s duel you’d expect to see on college baseball’s biggest stage, but ultimately, North Carolina scored two runs in the seven and three in the eighth, all off Ole Miss reliever Walker Hooks, and got 2 1/3 shutout innings from reliever Caden Glauber in a 6-2 win in their opener at the 2026 Men’s College World Series.
“I was just hoping we could get his pitch count up to get him out of there because I thought his stuff was electric,” Forbes said of Rabe.
Rabe’s fastball was electric early in the game, and the Ole Miss starter struck out two batters in a perfect first inning,
With two outs in the bottom of the second, Rabe walked UNC’s Cooper Nicholson in a nine-pitch after getting ahead 0-2. Nicholson took two balls and fouled off three more pitches before taking two more balls for a free trip to first. Taylor Howe singled to give the Tar Heels runners at first and third, but Rabe escaped the jam, getting Colin Hynek looking to end the inning.
Brayden Randle led off the top of the third for Ole Miss, hitting a high pop behind third that eluded Nicholson and Howe and fell to the grass for a double. He advanced to third on Collin Reuter’s groundout to short, then scored when Dom Decker, who came to Omaha last year with the Murray State Racers, doubled into the left center field gap, giving Ole Miss a 1-0 lead.
In the fourth, Rabe walked Macon Winslow with one out and then walked Nicholson again with two outs, but quickly induced a weak grounder back to the mound from Tyler Howe, which he tossed over to first to get out of the jam.
Rabe continued to steamroll the Tar Heels through his first 100 pitches before giving up a solo homer to Owen Hull, who led off the sixth inning for UNC. After getting Erik Paulsen to fly out to left, Bianco lifted Rabe after 5 2/3 innings and 108 pitches, his fourth outing of 100-plus pitches in his last five starts, having walked four and struck out seven.
After the game, Rabe was his own toughest critic.
“It was all right. Not my best, I would say,” Rabe said when asked to evaluate his performance. “I was a little out of sync with four walks, and that’s something you can’t do against this team. I was able to battle there and get us a little bit of length. I would have liked to finish out the sixth and have… a fresh inning.“
Decaro worked into the seventh for UNC, leaving after giving up a two-out double to Dom Decker, having gone 6 2/3 innings on 106 pitches, having walked three and fanned nine. On came came Caden Glauber, a freshman who skipped his senior year of high school, who quickly got behind Judd Utermark 3-0, and the Utermark singled to left to score Decker and give the Rebels a 2-1 lead.
“His stuff is great, but that’s not what gets guys in trouble. It’s not the strikeouts necessarily, even though we had quite a few tonight,” said Ole Miss home run leader Judd Utermark. “It was more of the weak contact that he produces, and we rolled into a double play in that last inning. He just gets a lot of ground balls, a lot of weak pop ups, and that’s what he plays off of.”
Lefthander Walker Hooks came on to throw the seventh for Ole Miss and issued walks to Tyler Howe and Colin Hynek to start the inning. Carter French’s sac bunt moved the runners 90 feet, and a sac fly to right field by Jake Schaffner tied the game at two apiece. Gavin Gallaher followed with a ground ball single into left center that scored Hynek to give the Tar Heels a 3-2 lead.
An inning later, Hooks retired the first two batters of the inning before hitting Cooper Nicholson on the foot with a 2-2 pitch, then allowed a double to Tyler Howe. After a conference on the mound, Hooks threw a first-pitch fastball to Colin Hynek, who blasted it over the left field wall to give the Tar Heels a 6-2 lead.
Down to their last three outs, Luke Romine had a pinch hit single for Ole Miss to lead off the ninth, but No. 9 hitter Collin Reuter grounded into a double play and Decker flew out to end the game.
“When you lose and you lose in the College World Series, obviously it’s emotional, it’s disappointing. But… you’re still in it,” Bianco said. “You’ve got 24 hours to kind of reset, get a good practice tomorrow, and another 24 hours to come out and play better baseball.”
With the win, North Carolina (51-12-1) advances to Sunday’s night’s game at 8 p.m. EDT against West Virginia, while Ole Miss (41-22) will face Troy in the first elimination game of the College World Series on Sunday at 3 p.m. EDT.
Photo: North Carolina pitcher Jason DeCaro (29) during an NCAA baseball College World Series game against Mississippi, Friday, June 12, 2026 in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Vera Nieuwenhuis)
