Coastal Carolina ready to defend College World Series title

Andrew Beckwith received a wedding invitation from strangers in the mail within the past few months.

The bride and groom in Iowa didn’t want him to attend, however. They merely wanted him to sign the invitation and mail it back, and Beckwith gladly obliged.

Though it may be the most bizarre, it is just one of many requests the Most Outstanding Player of the 2016 College World Series has received through the mail, phone or social media since June.

It’s a reflection of the new reality Beckwith and his teammates on the Coastal Carolina University baseball team have come to know since winning the school’s first national championship, and will know as they defend their College World Series title in the 2017 season.

“You get messages from people all over the country just asking you to sign something or they send you letters if they know your address. So it is kind of crazy,” Beckwith said. “But you’ve got to stay humble through all that.”

The Chanticleers are now in full preparation for their national title defense, as Friday was the first day the program was allowed a full allotment of 40 hours of baseball activity per week.

The season starts Feb. 17 with the Caravelle Resort’s Baseball at the Beach tournament at both TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark in Myrtle Beach and Springs Brooks Stadium on the CCU campus. The Chants will open with Richmond.

“We’re ready for the 17th and I think we’re going to surprise Chant nation again this year,” Beckwith said. “But I don’t want to ruin anything. It’s too early.”

Coastal Carolina has now become more of a trophy victory for opponents, so the Chants know they’ll get the best shot from each of them this season.

“We got to the mountaintop, like coach [Gary] Gilmore says, and we’re hungrier than ever to get back there and keep competing with each other and competing for each other every day,” said junior catcher Matt Beaird, one of just three returning CCU position players. “Every year Coastal as a program has been good and every year people are coming after us, so we’re excited for the opportunity. I think as long as we go out there and play the way we should and trust each other we should be all right.”

The Chants, who last season won a regional at N.C. State then a Super Regional over LSU in Baton Rouge, La., to reach the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., are moving this year from the Big South Conference to the Sun Belt Conference, so they will have a new group of conference opponents.

“This new conference is going to be a little bit better than the Big South, I think personally,” Beckwith said. “But we’re up for the challenge.”

CCU will be formidable on the mound, with returning starters Beckwith, Alex Cunningham and Jason Bilous, who combined to go 28-6 – Beckwith was 15-1 with a 1.85 earned-run average – and Bobby Holmes returning to close out games. The Chants will have five new starting position players and a new starting DH in 2017, however.

“With the experience we have and quality at the top end of that [pitching] group, that should be a strength for us,” Gilmore said. “I’m surely not going to throw my position player club under the bus. I think it’s an extremely talented group of young men, a lot of them haven’t had an opportunity to establish themselves yet, so there’s not a true track record at Coastal Carolina to go off. But if I let my eyes judge I truly believes it’s an exceptional group and they’ll find ways to get some tremendous things done.”

The returning position players are Beaird, junior Seth Lancaster, who batted .326 and is moving from second base to third base, and junior center fielder Billy Cooke, who batted .324 and led the team with 27 stolen bases.

“Every team every year has to find its own identity,” Gilmore said. “This team is going to have to find it, and it will be a completely different identity than last year because of so many guys being turned over position player-wise. That’ll be something we figure out as we go along. You can’t think about Omaha at the beginning of February. It’s too big of a picture. We have to whittle it down to one pitch and one game at a time and try to work our way toward that goal down the road.”

One new position player is Conway High graduate Jordan Gore, a redshirt junior transfer from South Carolina who is projected to start at shortstop. Gore was forced to sit out the 2016 season after his transfer and also had Tommy John surgery on his arm last April.

“I can’t wait to play ball with this great group of guys. Everybody’s stoked,” said Gore, who watched the College World Series at his family’s Conway home with friends and relatives. “We’ve got a really close group of guys who love the game. … It was great watching them make that run. There’s not a more deserving group of guys.”

Perhaps more than any of his players, Gilmore has become more well known, more of a celebrity and more in demand for interviews in the aftermath of the national title in his 21st year at the helm of the program.

“It’s all good stuff. You get to tell the world about an incredible group of young men and fantastic coaching staff, and watching the Teal Nation grow one by one each and every day,” Gilmore said.

This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina ready to defend College World Series title."