Coastal Carolina ends its Sun Belt Championship baseball opener in rare fashion

Coastal Carolina advanced Wednesday in its opening game in the Sun Belt Conference Championship with a rare eighth-inning walk off at Louisiana-Lafayette’s Russo Park.

Zach Biermann’s two-run home run over the right field fence gave the Chanticleers a 12-2 lead over Texas-Arlington to enact the tournament’s 10-run rule that takes effect after the seventh inning.

The win is Coastal’s first in the Sun Belt tournament. Despite being the top seed in its first season in the conference last season, Coastal was bounced by an opening-game loss after the tournament was shortened to single elimination following two days of weather postponements. It left the 2016 national champions out of the NCAA tournament field.

“Everybody keeps bringing up last year to us,” Coastal head coach Gary Gilmore said. “Just for me, it was nice to see us get our first conference tournament win and put it behind us, and hopefully we can play like this, competitively the rest of the way through.”

The top-seeded Chanticleers (39-17) will face fourth-seeded South Alabama (31-23) at 5 p.m. (ET) Thursday in the double-elimination tournament. They will either play at 4 p.m. Friday in the loser’s bracket with a loss or have Friday off with a win and advance to Saturday’s semifinals, where they would play either one or two games. The championship game is Sunday.

Coastal is seeking the conference’s automatic bid into an NCAA regional after going 23-7 in league play, and got the win Wednesday in sweltering heat with temperatures in the 90s and humidity near 50 percent.

“This time of year it’s not about how pretty you play but it’s about guys stepping up,” Gilmore said.

Sophmore lefthander Anthony Veneziano (6-1) got the win, throwing five innings and allowing five hits and three walks with seven strikeouts, which is one shy of his season high. He consistently got out of trouble to help Coastal improve to 10-1 in games he has started this year.

Veneziano allowed two baserunners in four of his five innings, including three times with less than two outs, but he managed to escape without allowing a run on each occasion.

“You have to compete each pitch. You can’t think ahead. You have to stay within yourself and within your breath, we talk about that a lot,” Veneziano said. “Fortunately today I was able to get out of a lot of jams, so it was a good experience for me. First time pitching in a conference tournament for us, so it was exciting.”

Coastal got home runs from Seth Lancaster, Keaton Weisz and Biermann, who had four RBI, and Kevin Woodall Jr. had three hits and three runs scored.

The game was scoreless through three innings.

In the first, Veneziano allowed a single and walk but induced an inning-ending double play. In the second, he allowed two singles with no outs before striking out two and getting a nice running, over-the-shoulder catch in foul territory by Woodall down the first base line.

Veneziano allowed a two-out single before a strikeout in the third, and in the fourth he hit a batter and allowed a four-pitch walk with no outs before getting a groundout and striking out the next two batters.

He escaped a two-out jam in the fifth inning following a walk and single by getting another strikeout on the final batter he faced on his 97th pitch.

“I kind of figured that fifth inning was my last inning because I had runners on first and second the whole time,” Veneziano said. “So I knew that last batter there, a lefty, I was going to give it all I’ve got and got the job done for us.”

Davie Inman relieved in the sixth and allowed two hits and two walks with two strikeouts over two innings, and Carolina Forest High grad Patrick Orlando allowed two runs on three hits in the eighth to end the shutout bid.

Jason Bilous has served as Coastal’s No. 1 starter this season but threw 93 pitches on Friday against Appalachian State.

“You’re not going to win a tournament like this unless you have eight, nine, 10 arms that step up and help you,” Gilmore said. “That’s the whole reason we didn’t start Jason today. We felt like we didn’t want to completely burn his body out on two days less rest than what he’s used to.”

Lancaster opened the scoring by lofting a high opposite field home run that just cleared the left field fence in the bottom of the fourth, tying Woodall for the team lead in home runs with 17.

The Chants opened up a five-run lead with four in the sixth inning. Woodall opened the inning with a double to the left-center gap and scored on a Biermann single.

“I think everyone has confidence that we’re going to put some runs on the board,” said Weisz of the Chants’ offense, which is sixth in the nation in runs scored. “It just took us a little more time today.”

Cameron Pearcey pinch-ran for Lee Sponseller at first base with two outs, advanced to third on a Parker Chavers single and scored on a wild pitch, barely beating the throw of catcher Will Olson and tag of pitcher Brad Vassar. Weisz followed with his third home run of the season, a two-run shot off the left field fair/foul pole.

“That was definitely the longest homer I’ve hit in college,” Weisz said. “It was a good changeup, right down the middle, and I got all of it.”

CCU added four more in the seventh, loading the bases on walks to Cory Wood and Lancaster and a single by Woodall. Biermann walked in a run, Kieton Rivers knocked in two runs with a double down the left field line and Chavers had a sacrifice fly.

The Chants got three in the eighth on a Matt Beaird double, run-scoring sacrifice fly by Lancaster, walk by Woodall and game-ending homer by Biermann.

Coastal now turns its attention to South Alabama and a possible day off on Friday.

“I can guarantee you they’re going to show up here throwing haymakers at us tomorrow,” Gilmore said. “. . . Lineup-wise, outside of our lineup they’re the other lineup in this tournament that has a lot of power throughout it. They can hurt you in a lot of ways and hurt you in a hurry.”

This story was originally published May 23, 2018 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina ends its Sun Belt Championship baseball opener in rare fashion."