CCU Baseball Notebook: Chants looking to build momentum after weekend sweep

Mired in a rut of four losses in the span of five games that had coach Gary Gilmore concerned where the season was heading, the Coastal Carolina baseball team traveled to Presbyterian last weekend needing a positive outcome.

And that’s exactly what the Chanticleers got – in more ways than one.

Most importantly, the Chants completed a three-game sweep of the Blue Hose in Clinton and got a little help elsewhere in the Big South to move back into a tie for first-place atop the conference standings, along with Radford and Liberty.

“It was really important for us to go up there and take care of business,” senior left-hander Austin Kerr said. “We’ve been playing pretty good on the road so far, so it was just a big series for us to get back on track.”

Said freshman lefty Shane Sawczak: “We knew on Sunday that Radford lost to High Point and we knew that we wanted to win that game so now we’re tied, now we’re in the hunt. I know we’ll come back and be on top again.”

The Chants (30-13, 14-4 Big South) actually get a break from conference play this week, although that might not be the best way to describe it as they continue a stretch of eight-straight road games with four more daunting tests.

Coastal Carolina – again unranked in Baseball America’s top-25 poll but ranked No. 23 by D1Baseball.com and No. 25 by the National Colleigate Baseball Writers Association – plays at UNC Wilmington (29-11) on Tuesday before heading to Tallahasee, Fla., for a three-game set at No. 9 Florida State (33-13) starting Friday.

The Chants will have two Big South series remaining after that, home against Liberty and at Campbell.

In the meanwhile, they’re hoping to build on their three-game winning streak and create a little momentum moving toward the finish line.

“We just told ourselves we control our own destiny for the rest of the year, whether we win the conference tournament or we get ourselves an at-large bid [into the NCAA regionals], whatever happens, we kind of control that,” Kerr said. “We just told ourselves it’s time to step up.

“Honestly we got a little bit of our swagger back that we were playing with when we were playing well against ACC, SEC [teams].”

Sawczak shows what he can do

Another very positive development for the Chants over the weekend was the performance of Sawczak.

The rookie left-hander has had his struggles this season, but with the team’s lack of depth in the starting pitching department, he’s been shown plenty of patience by the coaching staff.

And it paid off with a season-best performance Sunday as Sawczak pitched Coastal Carolina to a 9-2 win in the second game of a series-ending double-header.

He went five scoreless innings, allowing four hits and two walks while racking up a season-high seven strikeouts. He had just 15 strikeouts in 25 innings before the breakout performance.

“I finally did what I can do. No one here has seen me how I actually pitch. I finally showed up, finally all three pitches were working,” Sawczak said. “... I just threw the ball and pounded the strike zone for mostly the first time this year and it ended up pretty good.”

A promising recruit out of Lake Worth, Fla., Sawczak is 2-3 overall now with a 5.40 earned-run average. To be fair, he’s faced some of the tougher teams on the schedule while initially serving as the Chants’ mid-week starter against the likes of Clemson, South Carolina, Wake Forest and North Carolina before moving into a weekend role.

“I just wanted to prove myself,” Sawczak said. “They knew what I could do, but they didn’t have really trust. I didn’t have trust in myself. But [Sunday] I gained a lot of confidence and I’ll be ready for next time.”

With sophomore ace Alex Cunningham (6-0, 2.64 ERA) out with injury this past weekend, the Chants needed Sawczak to deliver. Cunningham was expected to undergo more tests Monday afternoon to determine exactly what’s causing pain in his pitching arm and his status remains up in the air, so the Chants could be especially thin in the rotation moving forward.

Either way, the Chants will hope Sawczak’s gem Sunday was a sign of things to come.

“That’s what we ask for out of him, that’s what he gave us – he gave us a chance to win,” Kerr said. “... He’s thrown the ball well, but he really, really stepped up this weekend. We told him, ‘We really need you,’ and he answered the call.”

Power surge

Junior catcher Casey Schroeder and junior right fielder David Parrett each hit their 10th home run in the Chants’ 8-6 win at Presbyterian on Friday, continuing their season-long duel for the team lead in that category.

They are the first Coastal Carolina players to hit at least 10 homers in a season since Tommy La Stella hit 14 and Daniel Bowman hit 12 in 2011.

Overall, the Chants have slugged 47 homers this season, which ranks seventh among all NCAA Division I teams entering the week.

Scouting UNCW

UNC Wilmington has dropped three of its last four games to fall into a mini rut of its own, but the Seahawks have had the Chants’ number in recent years while winning four of the last five meetings between the teams.

They are led offensively by third baseman Terence Connelly, who is batting a team-best .367 with six doubles, a triple, a home run and 19 RBIs. Six starters in all are batting better than .300 for UNC Wilmington while catcher Gavin Stupienski (.313 average, 5 homers, 27 RBIs) and centerfielder Casey Golden (.288, 5, 31) are the biggest power threats on the team.

Neither team had publicly named starting pitchers as of Monday evening.

This story was originally published April 27, 2015 at 8:39 PM with the headline "CCU Baseball Notebook: Chants looking to build momentum after weekend sweep."