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The third spot in UNC’s weekend pitching rotation has been a question mark for much of the season. Veteran lefty Folger Boaz has taken most of the starts in that spot, but has not lasted longer than five innings in any 2026 appearance. When last we saw Boaz, he logged just one inning against West Virginia in the national semifinals before being pulled from the game.
Now, head coach Scott Forbes must decide what to do with that spot one more time. No pressure — there’s only a national championship on the line.
“This is the position we all want to be in,” Forbes said following Sunday’s 6-2 win against Oklahoma which forced a winner-take-all game Monday night. “I sure as heck do.”
Forbes, a former pitching coach, has seemingly pushed all the right buttons to get his team to this moment. UNC ranks eighth in the nation with a 3.89 earned run average, and freshman sensation Caden Glauber’s 2.05 mark ranks fourth among all individuals.
But here’s the problem: Glauber threw 65 pitches in five innings of long relief Sunday, coming in on short notice following an apparent oblique injury to starter Ryan Lynch. Glauber has now appeared in four of Carolina’s five games in Omaha to this point and has thrown 110 total pitches across the last five days.
Forbes knows there are bigger and better things ahead for Glauber, who has rocketed himself up future MLB Draft boards with his dominant freshman campaign. But he also knows how difficult it is to reach Game 3 of a national championship series.
“It will be all hands on deck,” Forbes said when asked about his pitching plan for Monday. “I trust our pitchers.”
Forbes noted he and pitching coach Bryant Gaines have “about seven options” to start Monday’s game. That includes Glauber, whose team is 29-0 when he pitches at some point during a game. That also includes Lynch, who threw only 58 pitches Sunday before being lifted. Forbes said the move was more precautionary than anything and that he didn’t anticipate Lynch’s injury was “too serious.”
“He just said that his oblique kept getting tighter and tighter and tighter,” Forbes said Sunday. “Could it have been dehydration? I hope it was. Because if he tells me he feels great tomorrow, he might be the starter.”
Though Forbes did not address this particular option directly, there’s also the possibility of Jason DeCaro being called upon for a brief outing. Carolina’s ace threw 83 pitches in 3.2 innings of UNC’s 9-3 loss to Oklahoma in Game 1. DeCaro has thrown on short rest before in the NCAA Tournament: as a freshman in 2024, he threw 65 pitches in Carolina’s opening game of the regional round, then came back three days later to throw 41 in the regional final.
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)
One option who is fully rested is freshman lefty Jackson Rose, who provided UNC with 4.1 innings of shutout relief against West Virginia on June 17. Rose has not appeared in either of the championship series games. His quality outing against the Mountaineers continued Rose’s strong run of form in the NCAA Tournament, as he has not allowed a run in four appearances and 12 total innings.
Forbes has been careful with his talented freshman, though, and noted earlier in the season that Rose is generally more comfortable entering a game out of the bullpen rather than starting — and said the opposite is true for Boaz.
Now for the more unorthodox options which were not addressed by Forbes: lefty Tom Chmielewski threw 39 pitches across two innings in Game 1 of the championship series, allowing one run on two hits. Forbes praised the man he calls “Chewy” effusively after the loss:
“I was really proud of Chewy for going in there and never pitching here and keeping us in the game,” he said.
Chmielewski has made only one career start, and his appearance against Oklahoma was his first since May 24. Though Forbes has shown the tendency to shrink his pitching options in high-stakes environments, “all hands on deck” likely includes Chmielewski as a possibility.
Walker McDuffie should also be relatively fresh: he threw 34 pitches in Game 1 but did not appear in Game 2. But the sophomore has only made one career start and also has not been at his best in the last month: McDuffie has seen his ERA rise from 2.77 to 3.28 since the beginning of the NCAA Tournament. And should Carolina elect to start McDuffie, he would not be available for the late innings if UNC is trying to hold on to a lead.
The pitching plan was the subject of spirited debate among the Carolina writers in the Charles Schwab Field press box following Sunday’s win. The only consensus was that there was no consensus: only Forbes and Gaines truly know what to expect before the first pitch is delivered Monday.
“I can’t make that decision tonight because I want to see how guys feel,” Forbes said Sunday. “I told Coach Gaines, I feel like we’ve got about seven options to start tomorrow, and I like every one of them.
“I’m not trying to hide anything. But I want to sleep on it. And our approach will be everybody available, as long as they feel good. If somebody doesn’t feel good, they’re gonna be honest with me. It’s just a matter of who we decide as a coaching to start. I’m not sure who that’s gonna be.”
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Featured image via Associated Press/Rebecca S. Gratz
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‘All Hands on Deck’: UNC’s Scott Forbes Discusses Pitching Plan for Winner-Take-All Championship Game Chapelboro.com.
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