Staff report

The next step for UNC center fielder Vance Honeycutt will be the Cape Cod Baseball League.

The CCBL is considered the top summer wood bat league in the nation for college players. It’s the most famous, the most prestigious, the most talented and the most scouted.

The No. 1 overall picks in the 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 MLB drafts all played in the CCBL and 14 of the No. 1 overall picks have played in the CCBL.

Honeycutt said on Thursday he plans to report to the CCBL on Sunday.

With 10 teams in the league, he’ll be playing for the Bourne Braves, one of the teams in the five-team Western Division.

The CCBL season is well under way. It got started in mid-June. Bourne has a 9-8-6 record (yes, there are a lot of ties) and is scheduled to play again today.

The regular season lasts through Aug. 2. That’s when the playoffs start, so Honeycutt still could get in more than a month of high-profile, highly competitive baseball.

Honeycutt recently tried out for the USA Collegiate National Team that will compete in Europe later this month.

He was one of 50 invited players, but didn’t make the final 26-man roster. He stole several bases in the five-game intra-squad series that helped coaches pick the team, but he didn’t have a hot week with the bat.

Honeycutt, a Salisbury High graduate, enjoyed a monumental freshman season at UNC.

He finished ninth nationally in home runs with a UNC single-season record of 25 , while stealing 29 bases. He batted .296 and led UNC in OPS, runs scored, RBIs, triples and total bases as well as steals and homers. He was one of only three players in Division I with at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases, and was the first UNC player to accomplish the feat.

He’s been named to a number of All-America teams and Freshman All-America teams, as well as the ACC All-Academic Team.