OMAHA, Neb. – Deiten LaChance nearly swung out his shoes, then walked around behind the catcher and home plate umpire and back to the batter’s box.
He’d just whiffed on a 97 mph fastball from Caden Glauber to fall behind 1-2 in the count, and he figured he might see a fastball again.
Again, Glauber threw a fastball, and LaChance swung and hit a high, carrying fly ball to deep right field, where North Carolina’s Carter French made a leaping catch against the fence, drawing cheers from the North Carolina bullpen on the other side of the mesh. It was the closest Oklahoma would get to scoring on the Tar Heels, who flipped the Game 1 script on the Oklahoma Sooners.
On Sunday, it was the Tar Heels who got pitching that stifled the opposition’s bats following a bumpy first inning. Ryan Lynch threw three scoreless innings after giving up a pair of runs in the first, and Glauber came out of the bullpen in the fifth and held the Sooners to just one hit and two walks over five innings, striking out eight and walking two. The two Tar Heels hurlers didn’t allow a single Oklahoma runner to get past first base over the final eight frames as North Carolina forced a deciding Game 3 on Monday at 7 p.m. EDT with a 6-2 win.
“We took the momentum early in the game, scored two runs. …We kind of get off our game plan of going pitch-to-pitch. We’ve done a really good job over the last couple of weeks with it. And we’ll learn from it. And that’s a good thing,” said Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson. “They got the momentum and they never gave it back. We faced two really good pitchers, and hats off to those guys. And that’s about how it ended.”
After a lead-off single by Jason Walk and a walk to Camden Johnson, Oklahoma ran a double steal when UNC’s Ryan Lynch delivered a 2-2 pitch to Deiten LaChance. The throw to second from Tar Heels catcher Colin Hynek skipped into the outfield, allowing Walk to score and Johnson to advance to third. A one-out double off the wall in right center by Jaxon Willits scored Johnson.
In the third, Mercurius walked Carter French and then Rom Kellis V singled past Sooners shortstop Jaxon Willits to give the Tar Heels runners at first and second with no outs. Facing Jake Schaffner, Mercurius came inside with a 2-2 changeup that Schaffner drove into the right field corner for a triple, scoring French and Kellis to tie the game at two apiece. A wild pitch to Gavin Gallaher allowed Schaffner to score to give the Tar Heels a 3-2 lead.
“I thought he was really good starting out. And that happens. I’m telling you, that happens. When you start punching guys out, you start trying to punch guys out and strike them out,” Johnson said of his freshman starter. “When you try in this game and get away from the fabric or the very essence of what baseball is about, the only thing you can control is throwing the ball to the target. You get out of your plan. And when you start trying, when you try to get back in your plan, it’s a struggle.”
A walk to Gavin Gallaher and a single by Erik Paulsen gave the Tar Heels first and second with one out, and then a snap throw by catcher Deiten LaChance went into the outfield, allowing Gallaher and Paulsen to each advance 90 feet. Mercurius then hit Cooper Nicholson with a 3-2 pitch to load the bases, but the Sooners freshman then struck out Colin Hynek and Carter French to end an inning where Mercurius threw 50 pitches and escape the jam.
In the top of the fifth, Owen Hull launched the first pitch of the inning from Mercurius over the right field bullpen to give North Carolina a 4-2 lead, ending the day for Mercurius, who allowed four runs in four innings of work, striking out eight and walking three.
In the bottom of the fifth, Tar Heels starter Ryan Lynch left the game due to an oblique injury with a 2-0 count to Kyle Branch, who led off the inning for Oklahoma. On came Glauber for the Tar Heels, and he struck out the side in the fifth despite the 2-0 start Branch had, fanning all three Sooners on two-strike fastballs.
“He was attacking, getting ahead early. And I feel like when you’re ahead a lot 0-1, 0-2, you kind of have your full arsenal at your disposal, and he was able to just kind of get guys swinging at his pitches because he was ahead in the count so much,” said Oklahoma’s Jaxon Willits, who struck out twice against Glauber.
Oklahoma’s only hit off the Tar Heels’ ace reliever came with two outs in the sixth when Trey Gambill hit an opposite field single to left.
After Erik Paulsen doubled with one out in the seventh, Cooper Nicholson homered to left to give North Carolina a 6-2 lead after getting the green light on a 3-0 count from head coach Scott Forbes.
“I swung at a bad pitch. I should not have swung at that,” Nicholson said. “I was just sticking through the at-bat, looking for something over the play. Got a breaking ball and swung at it.”
“I’m glad he swung at it,” Forbes quipped.
Glauber then threw a perfect seventh, striking out Kyle Branch to end the inning, and was perfect again in the eighth, fanning Jason Walk and Camden Johnson for the first two outs.
In the ninth, he struck out Jaxon Willits before issuing walks to Gambill and Brendan Brock before Dasan Harris grounded into a 4-3 double play to end the game.
It was another stellar performance for Glauber, who came to UNC a year early. Instead of going to his senior prom and walking the stage at graduation, he’s pitched the Tar Heels to the brink of a national championship. The Tar Heels are 29-0 when Glauber appears in a game, and he was fearless against one of the hottest lineups in college baseball on Sunday.
“When you play for the best team in college baseball, it’s pretty easy to go out there with the defense you have and the offense you have. Working with [Pitching] coach [Bryant] Gaines and just throwing what he calls. He works so hard behind the scenes to know what type of pitch to throw in whatever count you’re in,” Glauber said.
“So it looked pretty challenging, I guess, but you know, with the defense we have and the team that we have, it was pretty easy.”
NOTEBOOK – Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson named Nick Wesloski his starter for Game 3, while Scott Forbes didn’t name a starter for UNC, saying that he wanted to check with his pitchers and see how they’re feeling first. … For UNC’s Erik Paulsen, the win on Father’s Day was bittersweet. Paulsen’s father passed away from cancer last year that was a result of his service at the World Trade Center as a member of the New York Police Department. “My dad always brought me up as a strong kid. I was always around him, around adults when I was really young. It just made me mature really early,” said Paulsen, who went 3-for-5 with two singles and a double. “I kind of lost it in the dugout after the game today, after doing a couple of interviews. I just sat in the dugout and got a little emotional. That’s the first time I’ve broke down in a while. He just raised me to be a strong man. And I just try to carry that out every day.”
Photo: North Carolina’s Caden Glauber pitches against Oklahoma in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the NCAA College World Series baseball finals in Omaha, Neb., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz)
