The grind of a college softball season will bring out the best or worst in a player. In a sport where teams are routinely playing double headers, and the same people will be on the field for every pitch, it becomes clear which teams are built to handle it and which teams simply cannot.
What this season has shown about the North Carolina softball team is a resilient group. No matter what happened the game before, the team has the confidence that it will win the next one.
UNC won just as many games at it lost through the first month of the season, finishing the non-conference part of the schedule with a 10-10 record. The streak of seemingly alternating wins and losses would continue into ACC play. The Tar Heels won their opening series against Syracuse, but lost their next series against Pittsburgh, a potential semifinal opponent for UNC in the ACC tournament — which begins on Thursday in Raleigh.
The team would then start an eight-game home stand, where they would lose the first three games to No. 6 Florida State, the regular-season champions in the conference, and then bounce back to win four of their next five games, including a series win over Louisville.
The Tar Heels would carry that momentum to a win over No. 15 Georgia, and two victories over Boston College, UNC’s opening-round opponent for the conference tournament. The team entered its final home stand of the season against No. 18 Notre Dame.
They would win the series against the Fighting Irish, and after winning their next game against Campbell, the Tar Heels went to Atlanta and swept Georgia Tech to end the regular season on a five-game winning streak. Coach Donna Papa says that ending the season by picking up several victories is great for her team’s confidence heading into postseason play.
“I think they know they can play with anybody. We told them you’ve got to finish strong, and that’s what they’ve done so far. We’re not done yet,” she said.
“We’re going in to win a championship. That’s been one of our goals from the beginning of the year, so it’s not like were just happy to be there. We’re going in there with the belief that we can win it, and we want to win it, and we will win it.”
For the Tar Heels to accomplish their goal of an ACC championship, junior Kendra Lynch is going to have to continue her late-season dominance from the circle. She has been the go-to pitcher for the team for most of the season after sophomore Sydney Matzko suffered an injury earlier in the season.
