2013 Baseball World Series Chapel Hill Regional Breakdown
#1 North Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Towson, Canisius
The North Carolina Tar Heels come into the postseason as the ACC Tournament Champions and as the number one overall national seed. At 52-8, the Tar Heels have been an absolute model of consistency all season. They are very prolific at the plate and are led by Colin Moran and Cody Stubbs who have combined to drive in over 150 runs. The plate discipline for North Carolina has been a huge key to the offensive success in 2013 as they have walked more than they have struck out as a team. On the mound Kent Emanuel is the horse. He has five complete games enroute to his 10 wins so far this season. The Tar Heels are very tough to deal with at Boshamer Stadium as they have gone 35-5 during the regular season. This balance of prolific offense and depth in starting pitching and in the bullpen makes the Tar Heels a very strong, well-rounded choice for a number one national seed and they will be very difficult to beat in the Chapel Hill Regional this weekend.
The challenge for the rest of the teams in this region will be to keep this balanced Tar Heel attack offensively and on the mound in check. The Florida Atlantic Owls, the Sun Belt Conference champions, come in as the number two seed. The Owls come into the Chapel Hill Regional on an 11 game winning streak. The key players for the Owls will be the duo of Tyler Rocklein and Mark Nelson providing the power and freshman Brendon Sanger continuing his hot hitting with a .373 batting average. On the mound Florida Atlantic will need big performances from Austin Gomber and Jeremy Strawn if they are to have a chance to move on and shock the world by eliminating North Carolina.
Towson comes in as the number three seed and is a definite Cinderella story. This was supposed to be the final year of baseball at Towson until the program was recently spared from elimination. The Tigers went on a tear in the CAA Conference Tournament to win the automatic bid with a 29-28 record. Towson’s strength is their offensive as they are loaded with plenty of power paced by Kurt Wertz and Andrew Parker. This Tiger team is more than capable offensively to make things very interesting this weekend.
Canisius as the four seed out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference is having a record breaking season. They have won 42 games and will need a huge start from Garrett Cotright in the opener against North Carolina if they are going to pull the upset and move on into the winners bracket and make a Stony Brook type of run in this tournament.
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