OMAHA, Neb. – When the clock strikes 1 p.m. on Friday, the 2025 College World Series will be underway.
The Arizona Wildcats will face the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers in this year’s opener in Omaha, the first of four opening games for the eight teams before teams start to face elimination.
Arizona returns to the College World Series for the first time in nine years, having won the Eugene regional without having to face the national seed and host, Oregon, and then winning the final two games of the Chapel Hill super regional after taking a 18-2 drubbing from the North Carolina Tar Heels in the first game.
And Coastal Carolina? They’re only the hottest team in the country at the moment, riding a 23-game winning streak through the end of the regular season, the Sun Belt Conference tournament, the Conway regional, and the Chapel Hill super regional into Omaha.
What a way to start.
Sitting before the media on Thursday after his team took batting practice on the field where his greatest baseball memory was made, Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall took a moment to reminisce.
“June 30, 2016, was one of the most remarkable days of my baseball career, and ultimately it transpired right here. And that was the day that we dogpiled after winning the national championship,” Schnall said. “As you can imagine, that moment, that day, that team changed coastal baseball forever, quite frankly changed my life, my family’s life forever. So it’s an honor to be back.”
The Wildcats and head coach Chip Hale are back in Omaha for the first time since 2016, and for Hale, who played on Arizona’s College World Series teams in 1985 and 1986, noted that a lot has changed.
“[Rosenblatt Stadium] was a great old stadium, and what Omaha has done for this, it’s amazing, just to see the differences. And I always compare it, in the 80s, it was more of like a mom-and-pop store, and now it’s just become this huge, unbelievable industry,” Hale said. “I’m just proud to bring the ‘cats back.”
But happy memories aside, both coaches, and their teams, hope to survive to next weekend’s best-of-three championship series. Schnall, whose team won the national title in their only previous appearance in Omaha, sees a lot of the 2016 team for which he was an assistant coach and this year’s team.
“The parallels are simple,” Schnall said. “Really good players, but they’re selfless in everything they do. And when you bring together a talented group of people who have that same mindset, this can happen.”
The Chanticleers have gotten spectacular pitching, posting a 3.23 ERA as a team, but
“When the opposing team doesn’t score a lot of runs, it’s a lot easier to win, right? And that’s what our pitching staff has been able to do. In multiple weekends where we played a three-game series and the opposing team only scored four runs,” Schnall said. “Auburn had the best offense that we’ve seen all year, and they scored one run on Saturday. So when you do that, you’re doing great things. We won 23 straight games. We’re pitching in that time period at roughly a 2-4 ERA. More impressive is what opponents are doing, largely scoring position. And that talks and speaks loudly about guts. And this pitching staff has guts.”
For Arizona, a midseason gut check changed the year’s trajectory.
“We had that little lull in the Utah series and the beginning of the Houston series. And I think that was really like a gut check and a reality check. And we just all got right back on track and that kind of just pushed us to where we are now,” said Arizona relief pitcher Tony Pluta, who closed out the final game of the super regional in Chapel Hill. “We started getting punched in the face and people may have started panicking or maybe feeling like, ‘oh, no, this might not go the way we wanted to go.’ So we had a real… ‘Just what’s gonna happen? What are we gonna do about it?’
“So we got to work and we knew we need to play game by game and keep winning. So that’s winning each pitch and that’s what this team adopted and we’re still going by that.”
Arizona Wildcats (44-19, 18-12 Big 12)
How They Got In The Tournament: Won Big 12 Tournament
Regional Results: Beat Cal Poly 3-2, Beat Utah Valley 14-4, Beat Cal Poly 14-0 to win Eugene regional
Super Regional Result: Lost to North Carolina 18-2, Beat North Carolina 10-8, Beat North Carolina 4-3
Results vs. Other CWS Participants: Lost 13-1 to Louisville on February 16
College World Series Appearances: 1956, 1959, 1963, 1976, 1980, 1986, 2012, 2016, 2025
National Championships: 1976, 1980, 1986, 2012
Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (53-11, 26-4 Sun Belt)
How They Got In The Tournament: Won Sun Belt Conference Tournament
Regional Results: Beat Fairfield 10-2, Beat East Carolina 18-7, Beat East Carolina 1-0 to win the Conway regional
Super Regional Result: Beat Auburn 7-6, Beat Auburn 4-1
College World Series Appearances: 2016, 2025
National Championships: 2016
TV – Every game of the 2025 College World Series will be televised live on ESPN.
Photo: Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall walks onto the field during an NCAA baseball game against Ohio State in Jacksonville, Fla., Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
