Sawczak throws a gem as Chanticleers roll

Looking at the handful of left-handers dotting the top of Charleston Southern’s lineup this season, Coastal Carolina baseball coach Gary Gilmore figured freshman lefty Shane Sawczak might be able to give the Chanticleers something of a matchup advantage in their Big South tournament opener Tuesday.

And frankly, with the Chants’ pitching staff depleted by injuries to the team’s top two starters, Gilmore needed the rookie to deliver one of his better outings.

Sawczak not only answered that call, but he might well have turned in his best performance yet while throwing seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball to lead No. 2-seeded Coastal Carolina to a 10-0 win over no. 7 Charleston Southern at Gardner-Webb’s John H. Moss Stadium.

The Chants (36-18) advance in the double-elimination bracket and will play No. 3 Winthrop at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“This team, we don’t play like this all the time, but when we do it’s really special,” Gilmore said. “I’ve seen it 10, 12, 15 times this year when they are really, really, really locked in. It’s a fun team to coach. ... Hopefully they can find another way to do this again tomorrow, to have this same effort and same focus.”

Sophomore G.K. Young led the Chants offensively, going 3-for-4 with his eighth home run and a career-high five RBIs while sophomore Michael Paez was 2-for-3 with three runs scored, junior Tyler Chadwick was 2-for-4 with an RBI and junior Casey Schroeder was 2-for-5 with a run.

Sawczak was the story of the game, though, while improving to 4-4. He had come in with a 4.71 earned-run average, but he’s been peaking down the stretch of the season and was especially sharp Tuesday morning while striking out two, issuing no walks and hitting one batter.

Over his last five outings, spanning 24 innings, he is 3-1 with a 1.50 ERA, 15 strikeouts and four walks.

“He did a good job throwing strikes, locating a lot of pitches,” Gilmore said. “He threw his change-up over the plate – not at will, but enough to make them honor it. He threw his breaking ball. Two months ago he had neither one of those pitches. He’s come a long, long way. Not a lot of people have really hit him that hard on his fastball, and you mix and match those other two pitches with it, it really transforms him into a different guy.”

With the team’s top two starters sophomore Alex Cunningham (forearm) and senior Austin Kerr (elbow) out for the tournament with injury, it was key for the Chants to protect their bullpen Tuesday. Sawczak made that possible and said afterward that he could tell from his first warm-up throw before the game that he was feeling good.

“I knew I had to step up,” he said. “... I actually told myself I was going to go seven clean, no runs, hopefully no hits, but I gave up one. It felt good to get 10 runs. I got some breathers in the dugout, took my time and just took it one pitch at a time and did the job.”

Said Gilmore: “It was very important. We felt like it was a good matchup if he had his good stuff. It’s really great when your young pitcher can go out there the first inning, get through the first inning and the team comes in and gets five or six hits and scores three runs and all the momentum is on your side.”

The Coastal Carolina offense was indeed very impressive in its own right.

The Chants collected five hits in the bottom of the first inning, getting back-to-back infield singles from junior Anthony Marks and Paez to open the frame before Young later followed with a two-run single and Chadwick added an RBI single to grab an early 3-0 lead.

They made it 4-0 in the fourth on a run-scoring sacrifice bunt from junior Anthony Marks after back-to-back singles from freshmen Seth Lancaster and Josh Crump to start the inning.

In the sixth, Paez drew a two-out walk, junior Connor Owings swatted an RBI double and Young followed with a two-run homer to right-centerfield to make it 7-0.

Crump plated a run in the seventh on an RBI groundout, and in the eighth Young added an RBI double and sophomore Jack Curtis tacked on an RBI single to cap the scoring.

“We swung the bats all year and scored runs behind our pitchers,” Young said. “We scored 10 runs and [Sawczak] can have confidence to go out there and just pitch free and have no worries. And he’s a bulldog on the mound. Shane threw really good today, I’m proud to death of him.”

It marks the third straight Big South tournament opener in which Charleston Southern has been shutout.

“I think [Sawczak] just came at us so hard with the fastball early, but he was really good and they played great defense behind them,” Buccaneers coach Stuart Lake said. “They just had that energy and they showed why they’re that team every year that when you get them in the tournament they’re tough to beat.”

Said Sawczak: “We [played] textbook baseball today and it felt good to get our first win and now we’re on to the next one.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Sawczak throws a gem as Chanticleers roll."