OMAHA, Neb. – Make that 25.
It was another day at the ballpark, and another win for the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, who cruised to a second win at the 2025 Men’s College World Series, their 25th consecutive victory, after jumping out to a lead in the top of the first and leading wire-to-wire behind a stellar performance by starting pitcher Jacob Morrison to beat the Oregon State Beavers 6-2.
Oregon State advances to Wednesday’s 2 p.m. EDT afternoon game against the winner of Tuesday’s 2 p.m. EDT elimination game between the Louisville Cardinals, who won Sunday’s elimination game 8-3 over the Arizona Wildcats, and Oregon State.
Caden Bodine led off the game for Coastal Carolina with a ground ball to short and reached on an error when the throw from Oregon State shortstop Aiva Arquette was off the mark. He later advanced to second on a balk, Blake Barthol drew a walk, and Walker Mitchell was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out. Colby Thorndike’s double to the right center field sent Bodine, Barthol, and Mitchell home and gave the Chanticleers a 3-0 lead before Oregon State had come to bat.
“That was a massive two out double, a bases-clearing double,” Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall said. “So what did that provide us? That got us the score first, which is really critical in our program, and a beginning with one swing of the bat. And to do that in the first, I think it gave us a lot of confidence, obviously, moving forward, especially with Jacob Morrison on the mound.“
Easton Talt’s eighth homer of the year, a solo homer to right field, got the Beavers on the board in the bottom of the third.
“I was going up there anyway to see a pitch. I saw him upset because he missed a fastball up and then slider down. So I knew he gonna throw one pretty much down the middle,” Talt said. “And then he came back with a fastball and then basically repeated the same exact pitch with a 2-1 fastball. So, [I] got a hold of it.”
But the homer didn’t rattle Coastal Carolina starter Jacob Morrison at all. After Tait’s quadrangular, the redshirt sophomore from Michigan retired 16 batters in a row before surrendering a single to Canon Reeder with one out in the eighth, getting a little help from the wind blowing directly in from center field that knocked down some hard-hit fly balls.
For Morrison, a 6-foot-8 righty out of Michigan, the outing was what he had looked forward to redshirting his sophomore season due to injury.
“I think I just kind of settled in. I don’t know if I was nervous the first time through the order, but after that I felt really good,” Morrison said. “It was awesome to see really long fly balls be caught in right and left field. I’m gonna really enjoy seeing that again, but yeah, I just felt like I settled in and very confident after that.”
Morrison was effective because he used a four pitch mix, but also hit spots and locations to keep the Oregon State batters off balance.
“It was like fast-slow, fast-slow, in-out, up-down, you know?” said Oregon State head coach Mitch Canham of Morrison’s repertoire.
While Morrison was dynamiting the Beavers’ dam from the mound, the Chanticleers offense kept pecking away.
In the fourth, Coastal Carolina tacked on another when Caden Bodine’s grounder to second went through the legs of second baseman AJ Singer and into center field, allowing Dean Mihos to score and make it 4-1. Wells Sykes, who walked and advanced to second on Bodine’s grounder, scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-1.
An inning later, Colby Thorndyke was hit by a pitch, then scored from first when Dean Mihos doubled to deep left center, giving the Chanticleers a five-run cushion.
In the eighth, Morrison allowed the single to Reeder and then struck out Tait before a single by Oregon State’s leadoff man Trent Caraway ended his night. In all, Morrison threw 7 2/3 innings, allowing one run on five hits with seven strikeouts and throwing a career-high 109 pitches, 79 of which were strikes, before handing the ball off to Hayden Johnson.
In the bottom of the ninth, Oregon State’s Gavin Turley led off with a solo homer to left, but it was too little, too late.
After a single by Singer and a walk to Jacob Krieg sandwiched a strikeout of Tyce Peterson, Schnall brought in Ryan Lynch, who earned a one-out save with a game-ending strikeout of Canon Reeder.
Two days without games are ahead for the Chanticleers, but that doesn’t mean they are off days. The work will continue.
“There’s no bad days in Omaha. So we just extended our stay. Two days off is tremendous, but it doesn’t assure you anything. I think about 2016, TCU was in the same exact boat and we beat them twice,” Schnall said. “So it doesn’t assure you anything, but it does give us an opportunity to recover, regroup. As you mentioned, it gives us opportunity to rest some arms. We gotta keep working. We’ve got a practice lined up tomorrow. We’ve gotta keep working on some little things to continue to get better if we want to continue to play.”
NOTEBOOK – The top of the first inning contained two unique strikeouts. Coastal Carolina’s Sebastian Alexander was called for a pitch clock violation with a 0-2 count, and was assessed strike three by home plate umpire Scott Letendre. With a full count, Blagen Pado was hit by a pitch from Oregon State starter Ethan Kleinschmidt, but Letendre ruled that Pado intentionally allowed the pitch to hit him and was called out on strikes. The call was confirmed after a video review.
Photo: Jacob Morrison delivers a pitch in Coastal Carolina’s 6-2 win against Oregon State at the 2025 College World Series. (Photo Courtesy of Coastal Carolina Athletics)
