OMAHA, NEB. - For two straight seasons, North Carolina had needed a late-game home run from third baseman Chad Flack to advance to the College World Series.

But the fact that he struck out on the Tar Heels' final at-bat last Sunday to a standing ovation, and still beat Coastal Carolina 14-4, shows how far he -- and his fellow seniors -- have pushed this UNC program.

In advancing to their third consecutive trip to Omaha, the No. 2-seeded Tar Heels (51-12) have dominated NCAA play -- trailing only three innings in five games, outscoring opponents 51-20, showing they are a team to be reckoned with tonight, when they face No. 7 LSU (48-17-1), and in the future.

Only 17 other schools have advanced to the College World Series three years in a row.

It's a degree of baseball that has never been experienced in Chapel Hill, a new level that Flack, Kyle Shelton, Tyler Trice, Seth Williams, Mike Facchinei and Rob Wooten (who redshirted in 2004) were determined to reach when they chose UNC.

"They will forever be the class that got it all started, the backbone of our resurgence,'' said Carolina associate head coach Chad Holbrook, who also serves as recruiting coordinator. "We were always good, we were always one pitch away, one play away. But they weren't going to accept being one pitch away, or one play away. ... They brought an attitude, a swagger, a belief that this program could be where it is today."

And that it needed.

UNC had been close to national prominence previously, advancing to the Super Regionals just two years before the 13-man freshman class of 2005 hit town. That group wasn't ranked in the top 10 by Baseball America and didn't have the star power of some of the Tar Heels' previous recruiting classes -- although Josh Horton, Andrew Carignan, Luke Putkonen and Reid Fronk are among those who now play professionally.

But they had something that trumped their aptitude: their attitude.

There was Flack, a third baseman who had won three state high school championships and didn't seem to know the definition of "lose". And left fielder Shelton, who chose UNC even though coaches warned they might not have room for him to play much. Wooten, now Carolina's top closer, was determined to win again after shoulder surgery sidelined him for a season.

Williams and Facchinei, like most of the rest of the class, were sold on the opportunity to put their state school's baseball program on par with Florida State (which is making its 19th CWS appearance), LSU (14th) and Miami (23rd).

And Trice could have pitched more innings elsewhere but said he wanted to test himself against the best.

"Some pitchers didn't want to come because of Andrew Miller and Daniel Bard," Trice said, referring to the starting duo who became first-round draft picks in 2006. "I told [Holbrook] that I was up to the challenge, and all I wanted to do was compete."

It was just the kind of determination -- and work ethic -- the Tar Heels were seeking, although it wasn't easy to mesh early on. In 2005, the freshmen's brash attitude didn't sit well with many upperclassmen, some of whom were beaten out for starting positions by the new group.

"Some jealousy set in," Holbrook said. "They believed in themselves then, and we weren't together as a team because a couple of the upperclassmen felt like they were being pushed aside because of the freshmen. ... We didn't have the right leadership in the program at that time to accept them. That's why we didn't do as well in '05."

After UNC lost in the Gainesville Regional that season and finished 49-19-1, things began to change. In an end-of-season team meeting, the players talked about positivity -- and airing their differences before they started to fester. They emphasized winning, about taking the next step to the College World Series -- about accomplishing the things Flack, Williams, Wooten and the rest all came to Carolina to do.

"We wanted to change the expectations of the program,'' Flack said. "We didn't just want fans to want us to go to Omaha, but to expect it."

Few believed, though, that it would happen the following season. The Tar Heels, after all, had flamed out in two straight ACC Tournament games, and even though they had advanced to the Super Regionals, they were playing on the road, in Tuscaloosa, and they trailed Alabama 7-6 going into the bottom of the ninth.

Again, they were knocking on the door.

It took Flack to bust through.

"He was on deck to hit, and he said, 'Coach, we're not losing,' " Holbrook remembered. "We were behind, and I didn't believe him. It just didn't look good."

Until, on an 0-1 pitch, Flack belted a two-run homer over the right-field wall, sending his teammates into a frenzy and the Tar Heels to Omaha for the first time since 1989.

"Everyone in that dugout started believing at that time -- probably coaches included -- and that belief hasn't left," Holbrook said. "It's probably solely responsible for the attitude, the belief system, that's in our dugout now."

Flack did it again last June when, with UNC hosting the Super Regionals for the first time, he smashed a two-run homer in the seventh inning to beat South Carolina in Game 3. That time, the hit didn't just send UNC to Omaha, but into a new echelon.

"It's probably the biggest three-year, four-year period in Carolina baseball history," said Fox, who was the starting second baseman on UNC's 1978 CWS team. "They're going to be able to look back on it years from now and hopefully say, 'We were the initial group that came in and started turning the tide here.' That's got to be a great sense and feeling of accomplishment for them, and hopefully as they get older, it will mean even more to them as they follow the program."

Especially if they can now accomplish the one feat they haven't managed: winning an NCAA championship.

"Anything else would be a letdown since we've been there the last two years,'' said Williams, the starting center fielder. "...The upperclassmen, especially, we're not satisfied to get there.''

That may have partially been in Flack's mind last Sunday, when he approached the plate with two outs in the top of the ninth inning at Cary's USA Baseball National Training Complex.

Well before then, his senior class had shattered the school record for career victories (it now stands at 203, breaking the previous mark of 162). And with a 10-run lead, UNC's place in its third straight College World Series appeared secure, too -- thanks to the strong pitching, solid defense and powerful hitting that had been honed by four years of competition.

Then came the standing ovation from the baby-blue crowd -- not for Flack's clutch hits of the past Super Regionals, but for the winning expectations and national prominence he and his class had instilled in the program, whether he slammed another home run or not.

"He was going to strike out no matter what," Holbrook said, "because he couldn't see the ball with the tears in his eyes on that at-bat."

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