Chants snap skid with big win over Ball State

Very little had gone right for the Coastal Carolina baseball team this week as it endured its first extended losing streak of the season, and the weekend finale Sunday wasn’t starting out much better as the Chanticleers found themselves trailing again heading into the fifth inning.

But over the rest of the game the Chants seemed to take out all of their mounting frustrations on the Ball State pitching staff while piling up the runs and perhaps restoring some confidence after a trying week.

Coastal Carolina, which will likely lose its No. 19 national ranking when the new polls come out, collected a season-high 18 hits and scored nine runs over its final four innings to finish off a 12-5 win over Ball State before a crowd of 1,416 at Springs Brooks Stadium.

“We just kind of took it as a fresh start,” senior Connor Owings said. “We were back to .500, 5-5, at the start of the game, so we took it as a fresh start, tried to come out like it was Opening Day and play Coastal baseball. We tried to put pressure on them the whole game, drive balls in the gap, run a little bit and we got a big win. That was a big win for us, salvaged the weekend.”

Owings was 3-for-4 with three RBIs, including a pair of run-scoring doubles as the Chants (6-5) pulled away from the Cardinals (5-7) and snapped a three-game losing streak.

Senior Zach Remillard was 2-for-4 with three RBIs and three runs, including his team-leading fifth home run of the season in the third inning. Junior G.K. Young was 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI, sophomore Billy Cooke was 3-for-5 with two RBIs, senior Tyler Chadwick was 2-for-2 with two RBIs and junior Michael Paez and senior Anthony Marks also finished with two hits each.

Senior Mike Morrison (3-0) earned the win in relief, throwing 3 1/3 scoreless innings while giving up just one hit and one walk along with three strikeouts after taking over for junior starter Cole Schaefer (3.0 innings, seven hits, four runs, three earned and four strikeouts).

“It would have been tough to go in there today if we had played the way we’ve played the last few days,” Chants coach Gary Gilmore said. “Our offense collectively did a great job. Schaefer was not as good as he’s been, but he stayed away from big innings and stuff. I thought Morrison did a good job and so did Bobby [Holmes] coming in. And the offense did a real good job.”

Again, though, there was some tension for the Chants through the first half of the game.

Ball State scored in each of the first four innings and led 4-3 as Coastal Carolina came to bat in the bottom of the fifth inning.

“There was definitely concern at that moment in time,” Gilmore said. “I felt good that we had Morrison and Bobby and the two young left-handers, I felt we had the upper hand in the pitching part because they had played an extra game. I was just waiting for the offense to kind of erupt.”

And it did.

Marks and Remillard led off the bottom of the fifth with back-to-back walks and Young followed with a single to right to load the bases with no outs. Chadwick entered as a pinch hitter and hit an RBI single through the right side to tie the game at 4-4, and Owings then delivered a two-run double to right-center to give the hosts a 6-4 lead.

That’s all the Chants got that inning as a strikeout, a failed squeeze bunt and a flyout ended the chances for an even bigger inning.

But Coastal Carolina followed with three more runs in the seventh on another RBI double by Owings, a run-scoring groundout by Cooke and an RBI single from sophomore Seth Lancaster.

The Chants also tacked on three more in the eighth on RBI singles from Young, Chadwick and Cooke.

“We’ve been hitting the ball on the barrel all week. Nothing really fell. We just started to get them to drop, put a lot of hits together, something we hadn’t done since the first weekend,” Owings said. “… Just a very good win for us and way to get back at it.”

The Chants have six games this week with games against Wake Forest on Tuesday and Wednesday and four games next weekend.

Gilmore said this past week just showed him that his team still has a ways to go in a number of areas, but he still sees the same potential that fueled lofty preseason expectations.

“I don’t think it’s a time for panic yet. I just don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. That’s the reason we’re out here right now trying to find somebody who can pitch Tuesday and Wednesday,” he said, after observing pitchers throwing off the mound after the game. “That’s just kind of where we’re at right now. The things we had penciled in when we first started in the spring at this point have not panned out, so we’re kind of scrambling to figure that rotation out and bullpen out. We don’t have distinct roles at this point. And if we ever figure them out, this team’s got a chance to be really good because offensively I think it’s got a chance to continue to get better and I really think we can play great defense if we decide to play great defense.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 7:28 PM with the headline "Chants snap skid with big win over Ball State."