"The end of the year is not ever fun," coach Mike Fox said. "It's actually the worst, no matter where you are, but especially out here. We're going to tend to focus on the whole season. We kind of have to, to get over the hurt." Fresno State eliminated North Carolina with a 6-1 victory Sunday and will face Georgia in the best-of-three series starting Monday.

Each team had 10 hits and North Carolina (54-14) likely would have had more Ñ and more runsÑif not for Fresno State's defense, particularly shortstop Danny Muno and third baseman Tommy Mendonca. The Bulldogs have a .981 team fielding average after four CWS games. The only run for North Carolina came on a bases-loaded walk.

"They made every play defensively against us in all three games," Fox said. "Their shortstop and third baseman were sensational." Fresno State (45-30) had no errors in eliminating North Carolina on Sunday. The Bulldogs committed one error in three games against North Carolina.

"We look back at the stats and they made some errors during the year, but, boy, they play just terrific," Fox said. "If you ask me, that's the one thing that stood out. There were others, but that's the thing that stood out. They played terrific defensively. Their whole infield, really." Fresno State had runners on base in every inning and stranded three runners in the second inning and again in the fifth. North Carolina walked three; two other Fresno State batters were hit by pitches. North Carolina, which lost to Oregon State in the championship series the past two years, scored its only run in the fourth. The Tar Heels opened the inning with singles by Tim Fedroff and Chad Flack, and a one-out walk to Tim Federowicz. Kyle Shelton's walk pushed Fedroff across the plate, but a strikeout and fielder's choice ended the threat.

The Tar Heels won the previous two games on a ninth-inning grand slam to beat LSU 7-3 and an eighth-inning homer by Flack to beat Fresno State 4-3 on Saturday. Flack kept hope alive that another miracle finish was in the cards.

"I thought toward the end of the game we really hit the ball pretty hard," he said. "It's the way baseball is sometimes. Sometimes they catch it and sometimes they don't. But I think they played well on defense and took a couple of hits away from us." Fox thought the grind of coming back through the elimination bracket took a toll on his pitchers, who entered the CWS leading the country in various categories including ERA (2.83), strikeouts per nine innings, fewest hits allowed per nine innings and opponent batting average. The Tar Heels won their opening game over LSU, lost to Fresno State, beat LSU a second time and then played Fresno State twiceÑall within eight days.

"I thought we probably asked a little too much out of those guys," Fox said. "It's truly a difficult part of getting out here and then getting into the losers' bracket and having to manage your pitchers. "You want to run the guys out there that have the most impact on getting you here, within reason. I struggled with that today, and I think most coaches do with how much you ask out of your kids who haven't pitched back-to-back-to-back." The Tar Heels sent seven pitchers to the mound, including Alex White, who started and won the opening game and then picked up two wins in relief. Against the Bulldogs Sunday, he gave up three hits and two runs in 1 2-3 innings of relief.

"There's a lot of parity in college baseball, as you've heard, and it's difficult to get here," Fox said. "That said, we're not patting ourselves on the back. We had a good team that was driven to get here. Our league prepared us every weekend to play this caliber of competition."

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