As the mound of North Carolina baseball players peeled themselves away from the dogpile they formed on the infield grass, as the 3,250 sun-drenched and sweat-soaked fans finished cheering and made their way out of the USA Baseball Complex, the facility’s public address announcer wrapped up his postgame monologue with four words, “Good-bye, Cary. Hello, Omaha.”

UNC pounded Coastal Carolina 14-4 Sunday to sweep the best-of-three Super Regional series and clinch its third straight trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. The Tar Heels will open the eight-team, double-elimination tournament Sunday against UC-Irvine or Louisiana State.

Sunday’s win over Coastal was also the final game at the USA Baseball Complex for UNC, which spent the entire 2008 season there while its on-campus stadium undergoes a $25 million renovation that will be completed by the start of the 2009 season.

“It’s been a great partnership,” said North Carolina coach Mike Fox. “Everybody here — our operations staff, everybody with Cary and the USA folks — all came together and put on a great event. It’s real special being out here. I’ve made some great friends. There’s really some neat people out here and we had a good time out here.”

Players and coaches knew playing away from Boshamer Stadium would be a challenge this season, what with having to drive 30 minutes each way from campus to Cary daily and having to adapt to a more spacious field. But UNC thrived at the Thomas Brooks Park facility.

The Tar Heels attracted more than 52,000 fans to their temporary home for 36 games in which they were 30-6. They hit .324 as a team, and their pitching staff’s 2.83 ERA is best in the nation.

“We said at the beginning of the year we will not let it affect us,” said UNC senior relief pitcher Rob Wooten of playing away from Chapel Hill. “It’s a great facility. The people here were great to us. We had a ball playing here.”

The Tar Heels’ fun came at their opponents’ expense.

In Saturday’s first game, which UNC won 9-4, pitcher Alex White threw seven strong innings (eight hits, three runs, six strikeouts) and the Tar Heels’ turned six Chanticleers errors into six runs. Kyle Shelton, Kyle Seager and Seth Williams drove in two runs apiece.

“That’s probably the best team we played all year,” said Coastal coach Gary Gilmore. “I don’t know that we’ve played anybody that has the pitching pieces they have. And their lineup, every time you make a mistake, they make you pay for it.”

On Sunday, UNC (51-12) took control early, hanging six runs on the board — five with two outs — in the second inning. Garrett Gore’s RBI single gave UNC a 1-0 lead. Kyle Shelton hit a two-run single, Tim Fedroff smacked a two-run double and Tim Federowicz ripped a run-scoring double off the left-field wall to put the Tar Heels ahead 6-0.

That was plenty of help for pitcher Adam Warren. The junior righthander threw 4.2 no-hit innings and exited in the seventh after giving up just two hits and no runs.

“His pitch sequences, along with him staying around the zone, really just kept us off balance,” said Coastal right fielder David Sappelt. “It got kind of frustrating. You end up having to swing at pitches maybe they’re there, maybe they’re not. He kept changing it up and kept us off balance. He did a good job today.”

UNC strung together another two-out rally in the fifth. Gore, Williams, Ryan Graepel and Dustin Ackley hit singles in consecutive at-bats, leading to three more runs and a 9-0 advantage.

By game’s end, all nine UNC starters had at least one hit and eight Tar Heels drove in one run or more. Ackley and Federowicz both went 3-for-5 with three RBIs. Fedroff went 2-for-5 with two RBIs and Gore was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.

Cary is firmly in the Tar Heels’ rearview mirror as they head to Omaha, where they’ll try to get back to the championship series for the third straight year and bring home their first national championship in program history.

“We worked so hard for this all year long,” Wooten said. “We’re very fortunate to get back. We’ve got unfinished business to take care of.”