Vance Honeycutt on reaching Omaha: 'The goal is to win it'

North Carolina‘s two wins over West Virginia in the Chapel Hill Super Regional punched their ticket to the College World Series for the first time since 2022 and the 12th time overall in program history. But the Tar Heels have still not hoisted a national championship trophy in their program’s long history.

It’s every college baseball player’s dream to play in Omaha during the month of June, and a goal that North Carolina’s players set for themselves during their first team meeting in the fall. But star outfielder Vance Honeycutt revealed that just an appearance in the College World Series was not solely what the Tar Heels set out for.

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“Well it wasn’t to get there, it was to win it and this is just another stepping stone towards that,” Honeycutt said following Saturday’s win over West Virginia. “But whenever that first meeting comes I think everyone believes it, if you didn’t believe it you wouldn’t be here. To get there and to be on that track now, it’s rewarding.”

The hard work and focus on their end goal this offseason has paid off for the Tar Heels this year. A resilient group that has seen contributions from veteran players, true freshman, and several transfers in order the work their way towards college baseball’s biggest stage.

“Yeah to go off of what Vance said, we’re going to win it,” pitcher Dalton Pence added. “That first team meeting everyone was like okay, let’s get after it. And the days following everybody was putting in the work and nobody’s skipping reps or doing anything like that. Like we know the guys on this team were building toward the right thing.”

The road to Omaha hasn’t been easy for the Tar Heels, defeating LSU in extra innings a must-win elimination game to advance to the Supers. Where the dramatics continued after Honeycutt hit a two-run, walk-off homer on Friday in a 8-6 victory to win Game 1, followed by a narrow 2-1 win on Saturday to close out the series. A game where Honeycutt scored both of the team’s runs and Pence recorded the crucial save after closing out the final 2.2 innings of the ball game.

North Carolina’s highly anticipated quest for a national title resumes on Friday as they face Virginia at 2:00 p.m. ET in the College World Series opener.