What Coastal Carolina did against Florida A&M facing elimination in NCAA Atlanta Regional

Coastal Carolina handled its business against Florida A&M on Saturday, defeating the Rattlers 9-4 in an elimination game in the NCAA Atlanta Regional at Russ Chandler Stadium.

Now the Chants have the daunting task of defeating Auburn and Georgia Tech in succession on Sunday to stave off elimination and keep their hopes of reaching a Super Regional alive.

Who the Chants (36-25-1) will face first was being determined Saturday night in a winner’s bracket game between the Tigers (34-25), who defeated CCU 16-7 Friday, and Georgia Tech (42-17), the regional host and No. 3 national seed.

Coastal will face the loser at noon Sunday, and the winner at 6 p.m. if it wins the first game.

Coastal has now won six consecutive tournament elimination games after running off five straight wins to capture the Sun Belt Conference Championship on Sunday at Springs Brooks Stadium after dropping its tournament opener.

“This wasn’t unchartered territory for us. We’ve been here and we kind of like it in a way,” junior shortstop Scott McKeon said. “Obviously we wanted to win yesterday but the fact of the matter is we didn’t, so we knew what was put in front of us. Today we had to attack Florida A&M. We know the team we are if we come tight and trying to do too much we’re not going to win that way. We just try to be loose and have fun with the guys. We were ready to go today.”

The Chants got a solid start from freshman right-hander Nick Parker and home runs from Parker Chavers and Jake Wright in Saturday’s win.

Coastal took command in the middle innings with six runs between the third and fifth against Florida A&M (27-34), which was in its second regional after winning the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament.

The Chants took a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning. Cameron Pearcey doubled to lead off the inning and scored on a Cory Wood single. Following one-out walks by Wright and Zach Biermann, Kyle Skeels hit a sacrifice fly and Wright scored on a wild pitch.

After Willis McDaniel hit a solo home run to get the Rattlers on the board in the fourth, Coastal scored three runs in the fifth with the help of three walks and a hit by pitch. Skeels hit another sacrifice fly, McKeon singled in a run and Nick Lucky walked in a run before Pearcey lined out to leave the bases loaded.

Wright’s 11th home run of the season in the sixth put CCU up 7-1.

Parker (2-1), who entered the game with a 6.15 earned-run average in 15 appearances, gave the Chants five-plus innings and allowed three runs on eight hits and a walk with two strikeouts.

“I was just trying to execute pitch by pitch. I don’t like to think too far ahead into games,” Parker said. “I just wanted to go one pitch at a time, one inning at a time and see where I ended up after.”

Two of the runs scored after he allowed a pair of singles leading off the Rattlers’ three-run sixth inning and was replaced by Conway’s Jay Causey. Parker threw 86 pitches.

“I thought Nick Parker did a fantastic job giving us innings and putting zeros on the board for half the ball game,” CCU coach Gary Gilmore said. “It gave our offense a chance to do some things.”

Causey allowed a walk to Kaycee Reese, RBI single by Brett Maxwell, sacrifice fly by Robert Robinson and RBI single by Octavien Moyer before striking out Tucker Rayburn to strand two runners.

Chavers’ 15th homer of the season and second of the regional in the seventh inning gave the Chants an 8-4 lead, and a Biermann single in the eighth scored Wood, who had walked and advanced on a Wright single.

CCU junior lefty Austin Kitchen pitched the final three innings, allowing just three hits with four strikeouts.

“Kitchen came in and threw three great innings for us to keep us out of high anxiety, because we’ve had a ton of anxiety in those seventh, eighth and ninth innings all year long,” Gilmore said. “So it was very confident and easy with him out there today.”

Lefties Scott Kobos and Garrett McDaniels and righty Zach McCambley are possible starters Sunday. “I’m sure one of them probably gets pulled out of the hat somewhere along the way,” Gilmore said.

Coastal’s national championship in 2016 reinforces Coastal’s belief that it can defeat two good teams from major conferences in one day, with Auburn of the SEC and Georgia Tech of the ACC looming.

“I think we have a good enough team to the point where we know we can compete with these guys day in and day out, so it’s not a surprise and it’s not that we look like they’re above us or anything like that,” Skeels said. “We’re on the same level as them. We come to the park and compete every day just as hard as they do.”

Sunday’s noon game will be broadcast on the ESPN app and another ESPN channel or online outlet to be announced Sunday morning.

“Hopefully tomorrow is a long day for us,” Skeels said. “You could say we do have a sense of comfort in the feeling of win or go home because we are such brothers and I know I don’t want to leave these guys. I guess we play a little harder maybe, with a little more sense of urgency since we know if we lose this one we’re going home.”

Regional Schedule

Friday

Game 1 – Auburn 16, Coastal Carolina 7

Game 2 – Georgia Tech 13, Florida A&M 2

Saturday

Game 3 – Coastal Carolina 9, Florida A&M 4

Game 4 – 7 p.m. Auburn vs. Georgia Tech

Sunday

Game 5 – Noon, Coastal Carolina vs. Game 4 loser

Game 6 – 6 p.m., Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner

Monday

Game 7 (if necessary) – Noon, Game 6 winner vs. Game 6 loser

This story was originally published June 1, 2019 at 4:34 PM.