Andrew Johnson<\/a> did everything possible and then some to get USC (48-18) across the finish line. After already throwing 3 \u2154 innings of shutout baseball to close Game 1, Johnson went a season-high 7 \u2154 innings with two earned runs surrendered to get the Trojans to the doorstep of victory. He glided through North Carolina\u2019s lineup for most of the day, at one point retiring 15 out of 17 batters.<\/p>\n ![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780881579_770_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
North Carolina\u2019s Cooper Nicholson celebrates during his team\u2019s ninth-inning rally to beat USC in their super regional finale Sunday in Chapel Hill, N.C.<\/p>\n
(Laura Wolff\/For The Times)<\/p>\n
He ended the super regional with 133 pitches thrown in a little over 48 hours, on top of the 145 pitches he threw across two appearances in the College Station Regional for a total of 278 tosses in 22 \u2153 innings with five earned runs given up in a heroic postseason stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal from the beginning of the season is Omaha,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely not just happy that we made it to supers and moved past the regional, but for it was a great season and we can be proud of what we accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n
A first inning run off a Caden Glauber balk, plus Kevin Takeuchi and Andrew Lamb\u2019s solo home runs accounted for all the offense on a day when the Tar Heels (50-12-1) had their own star pitcher going. Atlantic Coast Conference freshman of the year Caden Glauber held the Trojans at bay for most of the game, striking out a career high 11 batters in 7 \u2153 innings.<\/p>\n
![\"USC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780881579_329_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
USC coach Andy Stankiewicz talks to his players after their season-ending loss to North Carolina.<\/p>\n
(Laura Wolff \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Glauber\u2019s work was enough to hold his team in the game, but USC still had a 3-2 lead heading to the fateful bottom of the ninth. After closer Adam Troy retired the first batter, a long, loud foul ball seemed to spark North Carolina. <\/p>\n
Third baseman Cooper Nicholson crushed a ball more than far enough for a home run, but just foul into the left field corner. But the near-miss seemed to rattle Troy, who walked Nicholson after getting ahead 0-2 in the count and fell behind 3-0 to nine-hole hitter Carter French.<\/p>\n
Stankiewicz made a pitching change mid at-bat, going to Chase Herrell. French lined a 3-2 single through the right side, leadoff hitter Jake Schaffner tied the score on a sacrifice fly and Gavin Gallaher drew a walk, bringing Hull to the plate with the series\u2019 winning run at second.<\/p>\n
USC appeared to survive at least with extra innings when a Hull foul ball looked ticketed for the third out, but it dropped with three fielders in the area to give him an extra life. Hull pounded his fourth double of the game, prompting mass hysteria from the 3,913 Tar Heel fans and ultimate heartbreak in the other dugout.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780881580_774_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Stankiewicz has built his program in stages, finally making the NCAA tournament last year and then going a step further this year.<\/p>\n
But he also knows these opportunities are never guaranteed, and it will take a lot of work to return to the super regional stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a step,\u201d he said. \u201cThings take a moment. Sometimes we want things to happen overnight as humans I guess, but sometimes it takes a moment. We\u2019ve been at this thing for awhile now, and we feel like we\u2019re certainly building it and folks are taking notice. Now we just can\u2019t go backwards. This thing\u2019s got to continue moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
A positive season, but a nightmare ending sure to haunt the Trojans until they finally return to Omaha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0USC\u2019s 2026 baseball season will be defined by two words \u2014 progress and pain. Just two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6129,10911,93575,423,143563,48,52,51,47,50,49,3289,6138,2967,143561,21949,2668,143270,23138,3533,143562],"class_list":["post-351126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bottom","tag-college-world-series","tag-extra-innings","tag-game","tag-kevin-takeuchi","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-north-carolina","tag-out","tag-owen-hull","tag-pitch","tag-run","tag-tar-heels","tag-trojans","tag-usc","tag-walk-off-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351126","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=351126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}