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CWS: Coastal Carolina Earns Berth In Finals With 11-3 Win Over Louisville

Leif SkodnickJun 18, 20256 MIN READ
CWS: Coastal Carolina Earns Berth In Finals With 11-3 Win Over Louisville

OMAHA, Neb. – If the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers have been anything over their marathon winning streak over the past two months, they’ve been consistent.

They get free bases, from walks, from getting hit by pitches, and they consistently make their opponents pay for giving bases away for free by converting those free bases into runs.

They did that again on Wednesday, drawing six walks and getting four batters on base the painful way, with three of those free bases converted into runs in a six-run bottom of the first inning on their way to an 11-3 win over the Louisville Cardinals. The win, the 26th in a row for the Chanticleers, boosted their record to 56-11 and sends them to the best-of-three championship series that begins on Saturday night at 7 p.m. EDT, where they will face the winner of the nightcap between LSU and Arkansas. Louisville finishes the season 42-24.

“It’s just something that our guys have bought into. Our guys are obsessed with getting on base,” Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall said of his team’s ability to get on base by taking a pitch on the body. “They understand the way you score runs is having guys on base. Any way you can get on base helps our team win. And we got a bunch of humble dogs in that dugout that are willing to do whatever it takes to win. And that’s why we’re one of two teams in the country still playing today.”

After Caden Bodine legged out an infield single, Sebastian Alexander and Blake Barthol were both hit by pitches to load the bases with no outs. Cleanup hitter Walker Mitchell took a pitch on the outer half for a single to right field, scoring Bodine and Alexander for a 2-0 Coastal Carolina lead. A four-pitch walk to Blagen Pado ended Louisville starter Colton Hartmann’s day, with Jake Schweitzer coming on for the Cardinals. Colby Thorndyke doubled to the right center field gap on Schweitzer’s 2-2 offering, sending Barthol, Pado, and Mitchell home for a 5-0 lead. Two batters later, Ty Dooley singled up the middle to score Thorndyke and give the Chanticleers a 6-0 lead.

“We always preach scoring first. And anytime you have a chance to score first, we’ll get a bunch of momentum dumping your dugout. And this time, Walker made it easy on me. He didn’t make me do it with no runs scored,” said Thorndyke, who went 3-for-4 with five RBIs and two runs scored in the win. “We always preach, when bases are loaded, the pressure’s on the pitcher, it’s not on the hitter. He’s got to throw three strikes. So we always preach pressure on the pitcher and we stick to your approach and we believe that it makes things easier.”

In the fifth, after Louisville’s TJ Schlageter walked Mitchell and gave up a single to Thorndyke, McDonnell lifted Schlageter for Jack Brown. Dean Mihos sent Brown’s first pitch of the game into the right field gap for a two-run triple, giving the Chanticleers an 8-0 lead.

Out to a big lead, Coastal Carolina starter Riley Eikhoff cruised through his first four innings.

The “off-speed was helping me out a lot. I was able to keep them off balance, get weak contact and let the defense make plays behind me. Whenever I don’t have to do too much and the defense just takes care of business behind me, it makes my job a lot easier,” Eikhoff said.

The Cardinals got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Jake Munroe and Eddie King Jr. hit back-to-back one-out singles, and then Munroe scored on Tague Davis’s double to the gap in right center.

The double by Davis chased Coastal Carolina starter Riley Eikhoff from the game after 5 1/3 innings, where he allowed three runs on seven hits, striking out four and walking one. On came Matthew Potok, who got Zion Rose to line out before allowing RBI singles to Garret Pike and Kamau Neighbors, cutting the lead to 8-3.

“I wouldn’t say that I was running out of gas. Obviously, every pitcher gets a little tired as the game goes on,” Eikhoff said, asked if having thrown 45 pitches on Friday and 98 Wednesday played into his early exit. “But I just lost some feel, then tried to get it back. But Louisville, they got a bunch of good hitters and they made some good swings.”

Coastal Carolina tacked on two more an inning later on an RBI single by Blake Barthol coupled with Blagen Pado and Colby Thorndike getting hit by pitches back-to-back to force Barthol across the plate. They’d add one more in the eighth on another RBI single by Thorndyke that scored Barthol.

Despite his team’s season ending, Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell, ever gracious, lauded Coastal Carolina and their head coach.

“It’s impressive the streak they’re on. Just not easy to win that consistently in baseball,” McDonnell said. “that says a lot about their kids. I always challenge our guys to be professional, be a pro, and show up every day. It’s just to not have a mental letdown, to not show up with 100%, and obviously give credit to their coaches, because they’ve got those guys on point. I mean, they’re a well-oiled machine. They’re efficient. And they’ve obviously put themselves in a great position.”

Despite the win and despite the streak, Kevin Schnall still has his eyes on what’s ahead for his Chanticleers.

“It really hasn’t hit me yet. I’ll be honest, I’m still trying to digest that game. I know we’re going to World Series finals and whoever wins two out of three brings home another night, brings home a national championship,” said Schnall, who is in his first season as a head coach.  “This is satisfying, but I’m not satisfied yet.”

NOTEBOOK – With one out in the bottom of the third and Blagen Pado on first, Colby Thorndyke hit a liner right at Cardinal’s second baseman Kamau Neighbors. Neighbors had the ball in his glove, but it popped out and he threw to second to get the lead runner. The umpires immediately stopped play and called Thorndyke out, ruling that Neighbors had intentionally dropped the ball to get the double play.

Photo: Colby Thorndyke went 3-for-4 with five RBIs and two runs scored in Coastal Carolina’s 11-3 win against Louisville to secure a berth in the Men’s College World Series Finals.

WBN NCAA: /news/category/ncaa

(AP Photo/Gary McCullough)

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