How Coastal Carolina baseball just got one step closer to clinching NCAA berth

Coastal Carolina is a win away from winning the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship and giving the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee something to think about.

The Chanticleers, who hope to host one of 16 regionals and would presumably be a contender – or certainly a No. 2 seed elsewhere as the conference regular-season and tournament champion – defeated South Alabama 3-1 Saturday in a game that featured a nearly four-hour weather delay.

Coastal improved to 3-0 in the tournament with its second win over the Jaguars in three days and has won its three games at Russo Park by a combined 24 runs.

The top-seeded Chants (41-17) will face third-seeded Troy (41-18), which defeated Texas State 10-0 in Saturday's other semifinal, to reach Sunday's championship game set for 2 p.m. (Eastern). Both teams are expected to be selected for regionals on Monday regardless of Sunday's outcome.

“We’ve worked all year and this is the league we play in. These kids want a ring," Coastal head coach Gary Gilmore said. [Matt Beaird] was part of a national championship team. He wants to have a ring that says he’s a member of the first team to ever win the Sun Belt Conference, and no one else can say that. Those 2016 guys can’t say that. These seniors want this thing.”

Coastal freshman righthander Zach McCambley didn’t allow a hit in his 4 2/3 innings before the delay and the Chants got a pair of runs in the fourth and one in the eighth. Sophomore lefthander Jay Causey of Conway pitched the final 2 1/3 innings and allowed just one baserunner.

“As much as I wish we could score 12 and 16 every game it just isn’t the way it is, so sometimes you have to find a different way to win and they were able to do that today,” Gilmore said. “McCambley I thought was outstanding. He found a way to stay off barrels and did a great job for us. . . .and Jay was outstanding down the stretch for us.”

Both teams loaded the bases in the first inning but did not score.

McCambley walked the first two batters of the game, threw a wild pitch and allowed another walk with two outs before Michael Sandle flied out to right field.

Coastal’s first two batters reached as well as Cory Wood singled and Seth Lancaster walked, and Kieton Rivers walked with two outs before Lee Sponseller grounded out.

In the second, Keaton Weisz bunted for a single, advanced to second on a wild throw and scored on a Beaird line drive up the middle, and Beaird scored on a Kevin Woodall Jr. single through the shortstop hole.

The game, which began at 9 a.m. local Central time, was halted with two outs in the top of the fifth because of lighting in the area and a delay that featured heavy downpours lasted three hours, 50 minutes.

McCambley did not return after the break. He struck out five and allowed five walks, and exited with a 2-2 count on Travis Swaggerty.

"I feel I could have gone a little longer," said McCambley, who said a blister on his right middle finger that began to bleed last week at Appalachian State wasn’t an issue Saturday and shouldn’t be an issue moving forward. "Usually in my starts as of late I’ve been going four or five innings. I felt good out there, honestly. Obviously I didn’t want the rain to come and the delay to happen."

Freshman lefty Dylan Gentry relieved McCambley following the delay and promptly threw a pair of balls to walk Swaggerty before picking him off to end the fifth.

Brendan Donovan recorded the Jaguars first hit leading off the sixth with a lined single into centerfield and scored their first run. He advanced to second on Carter Perkins’ walk and scored when the high relay throw on a double play attempt glanced off the glove of pitcher Davie Inman, who was attempting to cover first.

South Alabama (32-25) loaded the bases off Inman with two outs in the seventh after he allowed a single, hit Swaggerty with two outs and an 0-2 count and walked Brendan Donovan on four pitches. Causey relieved Inman and induced a fly ball to centerfield by Perkins.

Coastal loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the seventh on walks by Kieton Rivers and Lee Sponseller and a bunt single by Parker Chavers, but did not score. Weisz struck out, Beaird grounded into a force out at the plate and Wood grounded out.

Coastal added an insurance run in the eighth when Lancaster walked for the third time in the game, moved to third on a hit-and-run single by Woodall and scored on a double-play groundout by Zach Biermann.

Causey allowed his first baserunner on a single by Dylan Hardy with two outs in the ninth before getting Swaggerty to fly out to end the game.

Coastal survived stranding 14 runners on base, including five by Sponseller and four each by Wood and Biermann, who had nine RBI in CCU’s first two tournament games. Jaguars pitchers kept the Chants off balance with a steady diet of offspeed and breaking pitches.

Senior Zack Hopeck, who is 5-4 with a 4.26 earned-run average in 14 starts this season, is expected to start in the championship game. “He’s been waiting for this," Gilmore said.

It's unsure exactly what's on the line for Coastal on Sunday.

"We just have to control what we can control: keep winning, keep playing our best," Beaird said. "The rest of that is out of our hands."

This story was originally published May 26, 2018 at 5:12 PM with the headline "How Coastal Carolina baseball just got one step closer to clinching NCAA berth."