How Coastal Carolina crushed No. 20 Clemson with a 10-run first inning Tuesday night
Coastal Carolina got its first road win of the season in an unlikely place.
The Chanticleers, who entered Tuesday night’s game against No. 20 Clemson 0-4 on the road, throttled the Tigers 16-7 at Doug Kingsmore Stadium behind 10 runs in the first inning.
Coastal held a 15-0 lead through 2 1/2 innings, as they jumped on Clemson starter Billy Barlow (0-2), a freshman righthander from North Myrtle Beach, for five runs and knocked him from the game before he recorded an out.
Junior reliever Jackson Lindley of Anderson didn’t fare much better, allowing five runs before exiting with two outs in the inning. The Chants tacked on five more runs in the third to essentially put the game out of reach before Clemson got on the board with two runs in the bottom of the third.
The Chanticleers improved to 12-7-1 while Clemson, which is ranked in five of the six national polls and is as high as 20th by Baseball America, fell to 15-5.
Coastal was coming off a three-game series split at home against Louisiana-Monroe that opened Sun Belt Conference play for the season, tying 17-17 in a game that was shortened due to time in the finale Sunday.
So the Chants have posted 33 runs in their past two games.
Coastal recorded 14 hits, seven walks and three hit batters. Leadoff hitter Austin White was 3-for-3 with three runs scored, Tyler Johnson had both of CCU’s home runs and five RBI from the No. 7 spot in the lineup to improve his batting average to .351 on the season, Nick Lucky had two hits and five RBI, and Eric Brown and Graham Brown had two hits apiece,
In the first inning, Lucky opened the scoring with a two-run single, Johnson hit a three-run homer and Cooper Weiss hit a two-run single in his second at-bat of the inning. In the fifth, Lucky had a two-run double, Graham Brown had an RBI double and Johnson hit a two-run homer.
Clemson third baseman Max Wagner was 3-for-4 with a home run and double.
CCU super senior starter Elliot Carney threw 4 1/3 innings and allowed four runs on five hits and four walks with seven strikeouts. Sophomore righthander Matt Joyce got the win to improve to 4-0, allowing just one hit — Wagner’s solo homer to lead off the sixth — in 1 2/3 innings.
Tuesday night’s game was the beginning of an eight-game road trip for the Chanticleers. They move onto a three-game weekend series at Texas State, travel to Wake Forest next Wednesday, go to Arkansas State next weekend and close out the trip at UNC Wilmington on April 5. CCU returns home against College of Charleston on Wednesday, April 6.
After starting the season 14-0, Clemson has dropped five of its past six, including dropping two of three to nationally-ranked Miami this past weekend, though it defeated the Hurricanes 20-5 in the series finale Sunday.
CCU won its first game at Doug Kingsmore Stadium since 2012.
The Chants improved to 11-47 all-time vs. Clemson, with just seventh wins in the past 41 meetings. Clemson had won three straight in the series and seven of the last 10 dating back to CCU’s last road win.
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 10:30 PM.
