This Super Regional sold out quickly, and South Carolina was given (by NCAA mandate) approximately 600 of the seats in the main seating area. Therefore, the stands are about equally divided between fans of the home Tar Heels on the first base side and the visiting Gamecocks on the third base side.

The buzz started growing on campus early for this one. Fans started filling the grassy area two hours before the game to stake out their seats, even though today is the hottest day we've had this year (96 degrees). A local radion station, 620 The Bull, did a live broadcast from outside of Boshamer Stadium. And while having a sandwich as part of the pre-game media meal, I overheard on the radio of one of the campus police officers that there were several very inebriated, rowdy South Carolina fans tailgating outside of the law school, of all places. I haven't seen them stumble into the stadium yet. But I have seen Mr. Oot Oot (I think that's how you spell it), the older Gamecock fan who makes this characteristic sound during USC baseball games. See the featured video on "Going Yard" from earlier this season for the whole story.

South Carolina will be led by power hitters Justin Smoak, Travis Jones, James Darnell, and Phil Disher. UNC is led offensively by two freshmen, Collegiate Baseball Freshman Player of the Year Dustin Ackley and Tim Fedroff, along with Josh Horton, the MVP of both the ACC Tournament and last week's Chapel Hill Regional.

The ESPN cameras will be here for all the games, and they have brought in trucks with two big booms that provide additional lighting. The good news about ESPN's involvement in the Super Regionals- you get to watch live, exciting college baseball action. The bad news as you've probably already seen in other blogs- the NCAA won't allow any live game updates, so you'll have to wait until after the game to read them. This may have nothing to do with ESPN and may simply be another inane NCAA rule, but there you have it.

Here are the starting line-ups, then I'll have to check out until after the game- *!#%^*@ % NCAA !!!

SC:
Jones 2B
Darnell 3B
Smoak 1B
Disher DH
Kline C
Crisp RF
Willard LF
Reinhold CF
Havens SS

NC:
Fronk LF
Fedroff RF
Ackley 1B
Federowicz C
Horton SS
Flack 3B
Seager DH
Williams CF
Gore 2B

Touching the Bases will return at the end of the game with complete analysis and a wrapup of today's game. To follow the action with live pitch-by-pitch information, head to Gametracker.