No. 8 seed ECU ends Coastal baseball’s season after Chants’ run in NCAA regional
Coastal Carolina University, the winner of the 2016 College World Series, lost its latest chance Monday to make it back to Omaha.
The Chanticleer baseball team faced off against No. 8 national seed East Carolina University in the Greenville Regional championship game, losing 13-4 in a game that lasted nearly four hours.
This was Coastal’s third regional appearance since the team won it all in 2016, the only time the school has made it to the College World Series. The school has not made it to a super regional since 2016.
The Chanticleers’ season ends with a 39-20-1 record.
While the loss was hard to take, this team and this season made a mark on Coastal’s head coach of 27 years.
“They made baseball fun for me again,” he said. “All the stuff with the pandemic and all that crap. Baseball got to be a point for an old guy doing this for all these years, it honestly wasn’t fun anymore. To have this group this year, really reinvigorated me, to be honest with you, and I owe them a lot.”
The Chants fought hard to get to Monday’s regional. Coastal lost its NCAA regional to Virginia on Friday, then made a run through the elimination bracket to force Monday’s decisive game against the host Pirates. CCU scored wins over Coppin State, Virginia and ECU to get to the championship game.
ECU blitzed through its first game of the regional Friday afternoon, winning 17-1 over Coppin State, followed by another win Saturday against Virginia 4-2.
Coastal’s 9-1 win over ECU Sunday night, however, stopped the Pirates’ 20-game winning streak. Until its NCAA regional, ECU had not lost a game since April 26.
“Some of those guys, I feel like I’ve coached them four years, and I’ve only had them one,” coach Gary Gilmore told reporters afterward. “They’ve been incredible. There will be a point in time where tonight or tomorrow, whenever I get a minute by myself, and I’ll shed a few tears over them.”
East Carolina’s win over Coastal on Monday was defined by a seventh inning that would never end. The Pirates scored eight runs, including a three-run homer. Coastal cycled in its sixth and seventh pitchers of the game that inning while ECU raised the score to 13-2. In effect, Coastal had run out of arms as the game ran into its third hour.
East Carolina (45-19) will play at home this weekend against the University of Texas (No. 9) in the NCAA Super Regional series. It will be the Pirates’ seventh Super Regional appearance in program history and third in a row.
The Pirates have made it to the NCAA tournament 32 times but never made it to Omaha, raising the specter of whether this will finally be the year ECU makes it.
This story was originally published June 6, 2022 at 4:54 PM.
