North Carolina Beats Ole Miss 6-2 in CWS Opener as 7th-Inning Lead Slips Away

Q: How did a player with no prior playoff experience become North Carolina’s unlikely College World Series hero overnight?

It was Colin Hynek, a Georgia State transfer who had never played in a true postseason before arriving at North Carolina, and he became UNC’s overnight College World Series hero by delivering the game’s decisive swing. Hynek’s moment came in the eighth inning of North Carolina’s 6-2 win over Ole Miss, when he launched a three-run homer that turned a one-run game into a comfortable lead. That hit effectively sealed the Tar Heels’ opening-round victory in Omaha and made him the central figure of the night. What made it unlikely is his background. Hynek had not experienced playoff baseball in high school or at Georgia State, so this postseason with UNC has been his first real exposure to elimination-style, high-pressure games. Yet he has shown a pattern of rising to those moments. He also hit a key three-run homer against East Carolina in the Chapel Hill Regional, and his production this season — a .271/.360/.486 line with eight home runs — reflects a player having a career year at exactly the right time. Hynek himself has framed that as part of why he transferred to North Carolina: to play in games like these. On a team chasing its first national title and carrying the pressure of another deep Omaha run, he supplied the biggest swing of the opener despite having none of the playoff résumé usually associated with a College World Series hero. In short, Hynek became that hero by pairing fresh opportunity with immediate clutch production on the sport’s biggest college stage.

3 articles · Updated · Ole Miss Athletics · Jun 13

Ole Miss carried a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh before North Carolina tied it on a sacrifice fly, went ahead on a two-out single and broke it open with a three-run homer in the eighth.
Six late Tar Heels runs were fueled by Rebel pitching lapses—six walks and two home runs—despite Ole Miss outhitting North Carolina 8-5 in Omaha.
Taylor Rabe kept Ole Miss in control early, allowing one run over 5.2 innings with seven strikeouts, pushing his season total to 105 and giving the Rebels two 100-strikeout pitchers for the first time since 2022.
Dom Decker had two doubles and an RBI, and Judd Utermark singled home the Rebels' other run, but Ole Miss now drops into a Sunday elimination game against Troy.