CARY, N.C. — Here’s an encouraging sign for North Carolina’s baseball team: Cleanup hitter Chad Flack is in a slump again.
The senior slugger snapped out of a season-long funk just in time last year, hitting the home run that sent the Tar Heels to their second straight College World Series. At the start of another super regional series, their third baseman has a dugout full of teammates counting on him to do it one final time.
“Everybody looks at him and thinks he’s struggled the past two years, but we don’t think that at all,” pitcher Alex White said Friday. “He’s put this program in Omaha two years in a row, and I’m hoping he can do it for a third year.”
Of course, so does Flack. His batting average of .279 is more than 30 points below his career mark, and he’s coming off a 1-for-13 showing in North Carolina’s sweep of its three-game regional.
Flack — one of the most prolific hitters in school history — is known for dramatic home runs, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to rediscover his swing in the super regionals when the Tar Heels (49-12) meet Coastal Carolina (50-12) in a best-of-three series that begins Saturday.
The current slump is “none of my worries, really. I’m just up there to try and help us win in any way possible — and if that’s laying down four bunts, that’s what I’m going to do,” Flack said.
Flack, a senior, already holds three of the school’s career offensive records, and most notably has 321 career hits.
He’s best remembered for two of them.
His two-run, game-ending home run in Game 2 of a 2006 super regional at Alabama sent the Tar Heels to their first College World Series berth since 1989. Exactly one year later — with his average mired in the .260s — he crushed a tiebreaking, two-run shot in the seventh inning of the decisive game against South Carolina, a towering drive that propelled North Carolina back to Omaha for the first consecutive CWS berths in school history.
Both World Series trips ended with losses to Oregon State in the best-of-three championship series.
“It was just a hit, and luckily it gave us the lead, but with the team we had from last year, I couldn’t imagine the outcome (of the super regional) being any different, whether I hit the home run or not,” Flack said.
Maybe, but those clutch homers have the rest of the Tar Heels relying on Flack to come through with the big hits. After all, there’s not much on his track record to suggest otherwise.
“If anybody’s been there, it’s been him,” first baseman Dustin Ackley said. “Especially in the big situations. I don’t think he’ll be frustrated at all. I think his confidence will be there.
“I don’t really think he changes anything that much — I think when the stakes are high, he bears down even more.”
“Everybody on our team is like that — when situations are big, there’s that little extra focus that you have, and I think he’s got just as much as anybody does.”
Flack is taking a different approach this weekend.
While he’d love to deliver yet another game-winning hit, he has come to understand one thing: In a deep North Carolina batting order that averaged more than nine runs last weekend and boasts six .300 hitters, the pressure isn’t solely on him to produce from the No. 4 spot.
“I think you can get hurt at any point … and that’s definitely a good characteristic to have,” Flack said. “You don’t have to rely on just one part of the lineup, so I think it’s a big deal for everybody to try and get on base as much as possible. And if you do that, a lot of the guys behind me will come up with big hits.”
