Coastal Carolina baseball learns NCAA Tournament path. Here’s the schedule
Coastal Carolina baseball’s path to get back to Omaha is set.
The Chanticleers (37-21) will be a No. 2 seed in the Tallahassee regional and face 3-seed Northern Illinois (35-17) at 8 p.m. Friday (ESPN+). Top-seeded Florida State (38-17) will face 4-seed St. John’s (33-24) at 3 p.m. Friday (ACC Network). The NCAA announced its 2026 college baseball tournament bracket on Monday. The regional games are played with a double-elimination format.
The winner of the Tallahassee Regional winner will face the Tuscaloosa Regional winner in the best-of-three Super Regionals next week.
This is Coastal’s 22nd appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Chanticleers are coming off their second trip to the College World Series in 2025. Coastal lost to LSU in the CWS championship last year.
The Chanticleers were a Top 10 team earlier this season and were on track to host a regional. They struggled down the stretch, losing six of the final nine games to end the regular season. Coastal went 1-2 at the Sun Belt Conference tournament last week.
Coastal’s NCAA appearance comes as coach Kevin Schnall is being mentioned as a possible candidate for the South Carolina Gamecocks job. Schnall addressed the situation earlier in the season.
“The only thing I can speak on with certainty is that our focus right now is extremely microscopic, and there are only two things that matter,” Schnall said. “Number one, what can we do to make this team better? Number two, what can we do to make this program better?”
Citadel, USC Upstate in NCAAs
Coastal is one of three schools from South Carolina in the 64-team field.
The Citadel (35-24) had a surprising run to win the Southern Conference Tournament for its first NCAAs appearance since 2010. The Bulldogs are in the Atlanta Regional and will play Oklahoma at 5 p.m. Friday in the first round. Georgia Tech (48-9), the tournament’s No. 2 overall seed, and University of Illinois Chicago are the other two teams in the regional and will play at noon.
Former Newberry College coach and Brookland-Cayce graduate Russell Triplett is in his second season as The Citadel’s coach.
USC Upstate (33-28) earned its second-straight NCAA appearance after winning the Big South Conference Tournament. The Spartans are the No. 3 seed in the Tuscaloosa Regional and will face No. 2 Oklahoma State (37-20) in the opener Friday at 2 p.m. Alabama (37-19), the No. 7 overall seed in the tournament and Alabama State (34-21) are the other two teams in the regional and will play at 7 p.m.
This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 12:25 PM.
