{"id":350212,"date":"2026-06-07T04:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350212\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T04:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:01:15","slug":"north-carolinas-jason-decaro-shuts-out-usc-baseball-in-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350212\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina’s Jason DeCaro shuts out USC baseball in Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Grant Govel<\/a> was good, but Jason DeCaro<\/a> was almost perfect.<\/p>\n

USC<\/a> baseball lost 4-0<\/a> in Game 2 of the NCAA Chapel Hill Super Regional, meaning its quest to break a 25-year College World Series drought will come down to a single game on Sunday.<\/p>\n

North Carolina (49-12-1) turned to DeCaro with its season on the line, the seventh career NCAA tournament start for the veteran right-hander. DeCaro delivered a complete-game masterpiece, allowing just two hits \u2014 singles in the first and fifth innings \u2014 with eight strikeouts and one walk on a career-high 117 pitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it was all about Jason DeCaro,\u201d USC coach Andy Stankiewicz said. \u201cHe threw a heck of a game. He spotted his fastball and his breaking ball, we couldn\u2019t get inside of it and couldn\u2019t get through it. A very nice performance obviously by him, but the good thing is, we have tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of giving up a solo home run to Colin Hynek in the second inning, Govel had a strong performance for USC (48-17). After throwing 153 pitches across two appearances in the NCAA regionals, including 64 pitches in Monday\u2019s clinching win over Texas A&M, he gave up just five hits and struck out three over five innings and 83 pitches.<\/p>\n

His final pitch was a crucial one, inducing an inning-ending double play with runners on the corners to hold the game at 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysically good,\u201d Govel said when asked how he felt after making 236 pitches over a nine-day span. \u201cI think having a good defense around me the entire time was very helpful. The solo shot didn\u2019t really affect me. I\u2019ve had a lot of homers hit off me this whole entire year. Competing with their guy \u2014 hats off to him, he pitched a hell of a game \u2014 felt good. The game just didn\u2019t fall where we wanted it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for all of Govel\u2019s great work, the day was all about DeCaro\u2019s dominance.<\/p>\n

\"North <\/p>\n

North Carolina pitcher Jason DeCaro delivers against USC in Game 2 of the NCAA Chapel Hill Super Regional on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Kara Durrette \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

North Carolina found success against the Trojans\u2019 bullpen in the sixth. Erik Paulsen hit a 339-foot home run over the left-field corner wall to double the Tar Heels\u2019 lead, just the second home run given up by USC\u2019s Sax Matson all season. The Tar Heels added two more on sacrifice flies in the sixth and seventh innings, but failed to drive in more with the bases loaded in the seventh and ninth innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pitched well enough to keep ourselves close and give ourselves a shot,\u201d Stankiewicz said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, it was just all about DeCaro.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeCaro got better as the game continued, retiring the final 10 USC batters. It was a dominant pitching performance, but thanks to USC\u2019s comeback win Friday<\/a>, the Trojans still have life.<\/p>\n

North Carolina coach Scott Forbes confirmed either Folger Boaz or relief ace and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Assn.<\/a> Stopper of the Year Award finalist Caden Glauber will start Game 3. Stankiewicz did not name a starting pitcher for the decisive game.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Regardless, it will be all hands on deck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll need everybody,\u201d Stankiewicz said. \u201cWe can\u2019t go too long with too many.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game will start at noon PT on ESPN. The Trojans won four elimination games last weekend and they\u2019ll need one more to complete its mission to Omaha.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tell our guys Sundays are always important,\u201d Stankiewicz said. \u201cThis is probably the most important Sunday that they\u2019ll ever play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest afternoon of Trojans baseball in a quarter of a century awaits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Grant Govel was good, but Jason DeCaro was almost perfect. USC baseball lost 4-0 in Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[143273,423,143272,9251,4468,143269,48,52,51,47,50,49,1024,6138,21949,278,143271,776,143270,23138,117617],"class_list":["post-350212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-erik-paulsen","tag-game","tag-grant-govel","tag-home-run","tag-inning","tag-jason-decaro","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-monday","tag-north-carolina","tag-pitch","tag-season","tag-single-game","tag-sunday","tag-tar-heels","tag-trojans","tag-usc-baseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}