OMAHA, Neb. – For six innings, Coastal Carolina’s Cameron Flukey and LSU’s Kade Anderson dueled on college baseball’s biggest stage.
And all the while, the one run LSU scored in the bottom of the first was the only run in the game, with Anderson winning the duel. He allowed just three hits while striking out 11 in a complete game effort to make that one run stand up, as LSU snapped Coastal Carolina’s 26-game winning streak with a 1-0 win and took a one-game-to-none lead in the 2025 Men’s College World Series finals.
Derek Curiel led off the game for LSU with a walk, battling back from an 0-2 count to get a free base on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, and scored from second when Steven Milam singled up the middle on a 1-2 count two batters later, giving the Tigers a 1-0 lead.
“He made a couple mistakes to me in my bats. First at-bat, I got three heaters, and he had to get one down and I put a good swing on it,” Milam said of Coastal Carolina’s starter Cameron Flukey. Milam went 2-for-3 with a walk off Flukey, who allowed one run on four hits over six innings with nine strikeouts.
After a heck of a leadoff AB by Derek Curiel (drew a 7-pitch walk after falling behind 0-2), Steven Milam gets his barrel to this upper-90s FB and laces an RBI single (EV of 102) right back from where it came. Good mid-AB adjustment by Milam. pic.twitter.com/M8E7OxylGx
— Peter Flaherty III (@PeterGFlaherty) June 21, 2025
In the top of the third, Anderson hit Caden Bodine and gave up a single to Sebastian Alexander to give the Chanticleers runners at first and second with no outs. When Blake Barthol laid down a bunt back to the mound, Anderson fielded it cleanly and made a perfect throw to third to get Bodine out.
“I think we’ve practiced over 10,000 [pitcher fielding drills] in our season. We had the plan for what Coastal is all about, and just to go execute and field your position,” said Anderson.
And as good as the defensive play and throw were by Anderson, Michael Braswell III’s coverage at third base was equally noticeable.
“Give Braswell credit. That’s a pressure bunt and [Anderson] throws the ball over the top, basically over our baserunner’s left shoulder to collect an out,” said Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall.
When Alexander tried to steal third with two outs, the throw from Tigers catcher Luis Hernandez arrived a second later, but Alexander slid past the bag and was tagged out to end the inning.
It was as close as Coastal Carolina would get to having a runner on third base all night.
“We were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. We just weren’t able to get that big hit,” said Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall. “We’ve got first and second in the third and I think we put down a solid bunt. He’s calm, cool, collected, makes a play and gets our lead [runner] out.”
With two outs in the bottom of the third, Milam hit a fly ball to right field that hit the top of the wall on the yellow home run line and rebounded back towards the infield and legged out a double, but the next batter, Jake Brown, struck out to end the inning.
In the sixth, Milam drew a walk and advanced two bases on a two-out single by Luis Hernandez, but Flukey then got Chris Stanfield to ground out to short and end the threat.
In all, Flukey threw six innings and allowed one run on four hits, walking two and striking out nine. But Anderson showed why he’s MLB’s No. 3 overall prospect for the upcoming Major League Baseball Draft, using a fastball that touched 98 and a nasty changeup to keep the Chanticleers batters baffled.
“Cam Flukey is as good as any pitcher in the entire country. We were extremely confident walking into this game with him pitching. And he gave us opportunity for us to win,” Schnall said. “And, like I said, unfortunately we weren’t able to score. When you don’t score runs, it’s very difficult to win.”
In the seventh, Anderson allowed a leadoff single to Dean Mihos, and Ty Dooley’s sacrifice bunt moved Mihos to second. But back-to-back ground outs from Wells Sykes and Caden Bodine ended the inning, and with it, the last real threat Coastal Carolina made to score.
Anderson continued to roll in the eighth, following up a two-out walk to Coastal Carolina’s Walker Mitchell by fanning Colby Thorndyke for his ninth strikeout of the evening.
KADE ANDERSON MASTERCLASS 😤
The @LSUbaseball ace tosses a complete game shutout while recording 10 strikeouts.
130 pitches from the Tigers’ lefthander 🔥 pic.twitter.com/GgKljLy8cx
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) June 22, 2025
In the ninth, LSU third baseman Michael Braswell III made a stellar defensive play at third base, ranging to his left on a grounder from Coastal Carolina’s Dean Mihos and throwing across his body to first. Despite double clutching the ball, he got Mihos by a step for the second out of the inning. It was the fifth chance of the night for Braswell, who is batting .185 on the year, but stays in the lineup for his defensive value.
“There’s a lot of ways to impact your team’s ability to win the game other than just hitting. I think when you hand out these box scores, it has to do with offense mostly in the first, and that’s what grabs the attention. But you’re playing one of the best teams in the country,” said LSU head coach Jay Johnson. “They don’t give you a whole lot. You have to win the game.”
For Coastal Carolina, they’ll head back to the hotel and regroup before returning to the ballpark for tomorrow’s 2 p.m. EDT start with a chance to keep their season alive.
“If it was going to be easy, there would be more than one national champion. At the end of the day, we’ve got to regroup. We’ve won 26 in a row. Let’s just call it is what it is; the odds were not in our favor to go 28-0 and win this national championship,” said Schnall. “What’s eerily similar is in 2016, we lost game one, 3-0, a left-hand pitcher threw a complete-game shutout. Again, we’ve got to respond, rebound, regroup. We’ve got Jacob Morrison pitching tomorrow. Answer the bell.”
Coastal Carolina won the national championship in 2016, their only other appearance in Omaha, beating the Arizona Wildcats two games to one.
The Wildcats head coach that year? Jay Johnson.
In 2016, Arizona's JC Cloney shut out Coastal Carolina 3-0 in Game 1 of the MCWS Finals, coached by Jay Johnson.
Tonight, LSU's Kade Anderson, under Johnson again, blanked Coastal 1-0 with 10 Ks.
Same script, new stage! #MCWS— SnapStats²⁴⁷ (@SnapStats247) June 22, 2025
Asked about the comparison and if it might make him take a more cautious approach, Johnson said, “I think you could look at any two out of three, like any super regional, and they’re not over until you win two. And there’s not anybody that doesn’t really understand that, at least in our locker room. We have a different way that we look at things. Caution is not really a word that this group would really use.”
NOTEBOOK: When Coastal Carolina’s Caden Bodine was hit by a pitch to lead off the third, it marked the 60th game of the season where at least one Chanticleer batter was hit by a pitch. The Chanticleers lead the nation in being hit by pitches, having gotten 148 free bases the hard way this year. … The game time temperature at Charles Schwab Field was 97 degrees, with a heat index over 100. Asked about pitching in the heat, Anderson, a native of Slidell, La., said, “I think that’s the real benefit in playing in Louisiana. Growing up there, this was honestly not nearly as bad as it was in the super regional. And it wasn’t even comparable, honestly.” …
WBN NCAA: https://worldbaseball.com/league/ncaa/
Photo: LSU starting pitcher Kade Anderson (32) throws against Coastal Carolina in the first inning of Game 1 of the NCAA College World Series baseball finals in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz)
