Chanticleers reach Big South title game with another lopsided win

Asked if he could have imagined a better scenario for his Coastal Carolina baseball team through its first three games of the Big South tournament, Chanticleers coach Gary Gilmore didn’t need to say much.

“Absolutely not,” he said with a chuckle.

No. 2-seeded Coastal Carolina did trail early in the game Friday for the first time all tournament, but that deficit was gone by the next inning as the Chants went to work on their third straight rout while closing out a 9-3 semifinals win over No. 5 High Point at Gardner-Webb’s John Henry Moss Stadium.

The Chants (38-18) have won their first three games of the tournament by a combined 27-3 margin and are now back in the Big South championship game for the first time since 2012 – which was the last of six straight conference tournament titles for the program.

A win Saturday against top-seeded Radford (42-14) would clinch Coastal Carolina’s spot in the NCAA Regionals, though either way the Chants have positioned themselves well at this point to earn a spot on the 64-team bracket.

“The kids, they’ve been as locked in these three days as they’ve been all year,” Gilmore said. “And when they’ve been locked in, we haven’t won every time but we’ve been very competitive. At least for this year, the two best teams in the league are squaring off for a championship. I’m sure it will be a very competitive game.”

Yet again on Friday, Coastal Carolina got a best-case-scenario outing from its starting pitcher as sophomore right-hander Andrew Beckwith threw eight innings while giving up just seven hits, two walks and two runs and striking out three.

Beckwith (5-4) was making his first start in his 55th career appearance and had never thrown more than 84 pitches or 6 1/3 innings. He threw 105 pitches in containing the Panthers (29-26) while not allowing a run over his final six innings on the mound.

“I felt great. I thought I was picking up velocity as the game went on,” Beckwith said. “… Before the game [pitching coach Drew] Thomas, coach Gilmore said they trusted me. Last night I found out and they said, ‘Give us what you’ve got.’ And I just pitched off the offense. They led us.”

Said Gilmore: “We were hoping three [innings], praying for five and we got way more than that. It’s really good when you’re offense gives you some opportunity to make a mistake and still be OK.”

Once again, the Chants’ lineup got production from top to bottom while scoring in four straight frames from the second through fifth innings Friday.

Junior Connor Owings was 3-for-4 with a run scored, freshman Josh Crump went 2-for-4 with a run and two RBIs, junior Casey Schroeder was 2-for-4 with a run and an RBI, junior Tyler Chadwick finished 2-for-3 with two runs, freshman Seth Lancaster was 1-for-4 with two RBIs and sophomore Michael Paez was 1-for-2 with two runs while reaching base four times.

The Chants totaled 13 hits in the win and are batting .417 collectively through their first three games this week.

“Our main goal was to win this tournament. We know we have a [NCAA regionals] bid coming up next week, but we haven’t won a conference tournament in a couple years so we want to take back what’s ours,” said Paez, who also starred in the field with eight assists and a handful of highlights at shortstop.

Again, any suspense Friday was short-lived.

High Point struck first with two runs in the top of the second inning when Cody Manzella hit a one-out double down the third-base line, Carson Jackson followed with a bloop single to center, Chris Clare knocked one in on a double down the first-base line and Hunter Lee made it 2-0 on a sacrifice fly.

Beckwith mostly silenced the Panthers the rest of the way, though, allowing only two other runners to reach second base.

Meanwhile, the Chants quickly asserted themselves offensively.

In the bottom of the second, Schroeder led off with a double and took third on a sac bunt before later scoring on Crump’s two-out single up the middle.

In the third, Paez led off with a hit-by-pitch, Owings followed with a single to left prompting a pitching change and two batters later junior Zach Remillard laid down a bunt to first that allowed Paez to dive safely across home plate to beat the throw and tie the game. Schroeder followed with an RBI single and two batters later Lancaster clubbed a two-run double to the left-center field gap to make it 5-2.

There was no letting up, either.

Junior Anthony Marks and Paez drew back-to-back walks to open the bottom of the fourth and both came around to score on a bunt single from Owings as High Point third baseman Hunter Lee threw errantly to first.

Crump tacked on another RBI single in the fifth and Marks scored him on a bloop double to left to make it 9-2 and cap the Chants’ scoring.

Michael Hennessey (2-6) took the loss for High Point, allowing five hits and three runs in two innings.

The Chants will look to keep that momentum rolling Saturday in a one-game winner-take-all championship against the Highlanders, who won two out of three against Coastal Carolina in the regular season.

“Tomorrow is going to be a big game for us,” Paez said. “And having that momentum going into tomorrow is going to be huge for us.”

No matter what happens Saturday, though, Gilmore said his team has earned its place in the NCAA Regionals next week.

“If they snub us now, it will be the greatest snub in the history of Division I baseball,” he said. “Regardless of injuries and things like that, if we haven’t earned the right to be there, then son of a gun, I don’t know what we could ever do, personally. Regardless of who’s healthy, this team has earned an opportunity to represent our school in that.”

This story was originally published May 22, 2015 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Chanticleers reach Big South title game with another lopsided win."