OMAHA, Neb. — The championship series is set. And without a doubt, the two hottest teams, North Carolina and Oklahoma, are paired to play for a national title at the College World Series.

There was no backing into the finals for these squads, one that looked like a contender all season and one that did not until two weeks ago.

North Carolina (53-12-1) and Oklahoma (41-22) swept through opposite brackets at Charles Schwab Field. UNC punctuated its three-game run with a 12-7 victory Wednesday against West Virginia. OU followed by defeating Georgia, the regular-season and postseason SEC champ, 11-4.

Iconic brands in college sports, the Tar Heels and Sooners will meet Saturday at 8 p.m. ET in the opening game of a best-of-three series.

North Carolina seeks its first national championship in baseball. It lost in the finals in 2006 and 2007. Oklahoma has won two crowns, most recently in 1994, and it lost in the finals in 2022.

LET’S PLAY FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/588pVssfOR

— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) June 18, 2026

“It really hasn’t set in yet,” said UNC second baseman Gavin Gallaher, who was 4 for 5 on Wednesday with four RBIs. “After the game, we shook hands, and I was just kind of walking around, looking up in the stands, looking at my family, just kind of speechless, to be honest.”

The Tar Heels were seeded fifth in the 64-team field announced on Memorial Day. In Omaha, they have not trailed by more than one run — and for just three innings. North Carolina’s pitching staff, on maximum rest during its stay in Omaha, is set up well for the weekend.

Junior ace starter Jason DeCaro, who worked 6 2/3 innings Friday, enters the championship series in position to start the opener. Star freshman Caden Glauber, who was needed for 2 1/3 innings Wednesday afternoon as WVU mounted a comeback, has thrown only 54 pitches in the CWS. The Tar Heels are 28-0 this year when Glauber appears in a game. He’s won 11 decisions without a loss.

Sixth-year coach Scott Forbes took over in 2021 for Mike Fox, who brought North Carolina to the CWS seven times. Bids for a first national title fell short in 2006 and 2007 against Oregon State in the championship series.

Forbes joined Fox’s staff before that 2006 season as a 31-year-old pitching coach.

“I’m trying not to get emotional,” Forbes said, “just thinking about that team and Coach Fox giving me the opportunity. I wasn’t the popular hire at the time. There were a lot bigger names. I had never been a pitching coach. But Coach Fox saw something in me and gave me that opportunity.”

Oklahoma returns to the championship series for the second time in five years. It lost to Ole Miss in 2022. The Rebels that year were the first team to win a championship with a losing record in conference play.

OU is attempting to become the second.

Coach Skip Johnson’s team finished 14-16 in the SEC and lost four consecutive league series to close the regular season. But the Sooners clawed back in Regional play, winning two elimination games at Georgia Tech, the No. 2 overall seed.

OU swept Kansas in a Super Regional and beat SEC foes Alabama and Georgia before it won the rematch Wednesday night against the Bulldogs.

The Sooners remade their pitching rotation in the postseason to ride three true freshmen: left-hander Cord Rager, a season-long starter, Xander Mercurius and Nick Wesloski. The latter duo had combined to start four games this season before they both beat the Bulldogs, who came to Omaha with the most powerful lineup in college baseball.

Wesloski fired 5 2/3 innings Wednesday and struck out four, one off his career high.

Rager and Mercurius have inspired Wesloski, he said.

“Seeing the way they dominated and they carry themselves,” he said, “those guys are just elite. Watching them go about their process has made me a better pitcher. Those guys look unstoppable, unbeatable. It’s added to my confidence level. They influence me a ton.”

OU got hot at the plate, too. In eliminating Georgia, it homered five times, including two apiece by Jason Walk and Dasan Harris. Before Wednesday, Walk had hit four bombs in 200 at-bats; Harris had four in 137 at-bats.

Twenty-five of Oklahoma’s 90 home runs this year have come in 10 postseason games.

It pays to get hot at the right time.

“You’re looking at a baseball team, a selfless baseball team that’s really fun to be around,” said Johnson, the ninth-year OU coach. “Hopefully, I can just stay out of the way the next two or three games.”

RALEIGH, NC — For years, WRAL Investigates tracked problems with North Carolina’s unemployment benefits system.

Now, two new follow-up audits show the same problems still persist inside the Division of Employment Security (DES) when it comes to paying the correct amount of unemployment and paying those first-time benefits on time.

The first audit deals with improper payments. The category includes fraud, overpayments and underpayments.

From 2021-2025, the auditor found the improper payment rate for unemployment benefits in North Carolina was 22%, most of which were overpayments. That’s more than double the national standard of 10% error rate.

According to the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor (OSA), those payment errors cost taxpayers more than $90 million over the expected 10% error rate.

In fact, the improper payment rate got worse compared to an initial audit’s findings back in 2022, when OSA found errors in 18% of payments.

The second follow-up audit out today dealt with timeliness of benefits, meaning when people finally got paid after filing and qualifying for unemployment.

In 2024- 2025, 28% of first-time unemployment checks were not cut within the 14-day federal standard.  While not great, it’s an improvement compared to previous audit findings of 40% late checks in 2022 and 43% of late checks in 2024.

In fact, the auditor’s office noted on-time payments in below the national standard in just 3 of the past 20 years.

The Division of Unemployment Security agreed with the findings and recommendations to improve North Carolina’s unemployment system.