CHAPEL HILL — The bad news for North Carolina headed into the ACC tournament this week is that star center fielder Vance Honeycutt still is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
The good news is that Honeycutt is ACC defensive player of the year, and all of the Tar Heels have served the suspensions that the NCAA doled out in the wake of the incident in the Gardner-Webb game.
UNC (33–21) opens round-robin play Tuesday at 3 p.m. against Georgia Tech (30–24) at Durham Bulls Athletic Park (ACC Network), with junior right-hander Max Carlson (4–2, 6.20) starting for UNC against Jackets right-handed redshirt sophomore Ben King (6–1, 3.21 ERA).
When the news of the suspensions came out, Carolina would only say that multiple players would have to each serve one-game suspensions. UNC coach Scott Forbes revealed the number Monday, which was much more than most would have guessed.
“They’re over, finally, that’s 26 players over five or six games. We dealt with it, and that included the N.C. State series,” said Forbes, whose team has lost four in a row after falling Tuesday at No. 7 Coastal Carolina and getting swept over the weekend at No. 6 Clemson. “Obviously, we didn’t suspend many for that [N.C. State] series. We felt like that was a really big series for us, as all of them are. Most of the suspensions were between Coastal and Clemson.”
Some players did serve suspensions during the three-game home sweep May 11–13 against N.C. State, which is also when Honeycutt’s issues emerged.
“It aggravated itself a little bit on Friday against N.C. State, and then I noticed it when he was running the bases and how he was moving pretty gingerly at the end of the game on Saturday,” Forbes said. “It just hasn’t healed yet.”
Honeycutt leaves a huge void in the lineup, but in his absence, Mac Horvath has filled in nicely defensively at center field. Horvath has the skills to start in center field for many other schools that don’t have an elite outfielder such as Honeycutt, who had a doctor’s appointment on Monday.
I’m waiting to hear from the doctor, from Vance and our [athletic] trainer,” Forbes said. “We’ll just go from there. I don’t know if he’ll play [Tuesday]. But he is day-to-day, so he could.”
Forbes said that it’s hard to quantify all of the intangibles that the Tar Heels lack without Honeycutt.
“He’s a lead-by-example guy,” Forbes said. “His skill set is his skill set, so you’re not going to just grab a Vance Honeycutt out of your dugout, it just doesn’t happen. You don’t get to coach many Vance Honeycutts.
“Him being an elite center fielder, he changes the game defensively,” Forbes said. “But he also has the speed offensively and the power. You just hope that you can get somebody in there defensively, where you don’t suffer too much. The bat, that’s hard to replace.”
If Honeycutt can’t play Tuesday, the Tar Heels just hope he’s available for Thursday’s 3 p.m. game against a red-hot No. 12 Virginia team (44–11), the Coastal Division champion that has won eight consecutive games. Junior right-hander Jake Knapp (4–3, 5.11 ERA) is scheduled to start that game for the Tar Heels.
Honeycutt ranked third in the ACC in base on balls (49) and fourth in stolen bases (19). He finished second on the team in home runs (12), runs (51) and steals behind Horvath.
“It’s definitely a little bit tricky,” Horvath said of playing without Honeycutt. “He can impact the game in so many different ways [with] his speed, power. He can flip the game pretty quickly, but we’ve got a lot of depth on this team. So we’re just gonna keep grinding it out until he’s ready to go.”
Outfielder Patrick Alvarez returning after fracturing his left hamate bone has helped that depth, and he’s come up with some huge hits. He had the big triple in UNC’s come-from-behind win in the opener of the N.C. State series and hit a three-run homer at Clemson last weekend.
Horvath played 16 games in right field this season for before Honeycutt’s injury and got plenty of outfield experience last summer for Bourne in the Cape Cod League.
“I’ve always felt pretty comfortable out there,” Horvath said. “I was hoping the day would never come that I play center field here because we have the best center fielder in the country.”
Although the ACC named Honeycutt defensive player of the year Monday, he didn’t make first-team All-ACC or any of his teammates.
Junior second baseman Jackson Van De Brake made second team, Honeycutt made third team and redshirt freshman outfielder Casey Cook made the ACC All-Freshman team.
