CHAPEL HILL, June 8 -- For eight innings Sunday afternoon at Boshamer Stadium, North Carolina's season crept toward the same ruinous ledge it had fallen from a year before. Southern California held a 3-2 lead, its starter had been dominant through seven and a half innings, and the Tar Heels - silent, struggling, staring at elimination - looked every bit like a team about to be sent home again.

Then Boshamer stirred. And Owen Hull delivered.

Hull's fourth double of the game, a line drive into left-center field in the bottom of the ninth inning, scored Carter French from second base and lifted North Carolina to a 4-3 walk-off victory over USC in the deciding game of the Chapel Hill Super Regional. The win punched the Tar Heels' ticket to ...