Gilmore, players share early thoughts on College World Series matchup and trip

The response continues to be beyond anything coach Gary Gilmore could have expected since his Coastal Carolina baseball team advanced to the College World Series for the first time.

By Wednesday afternoon, as he cooled off from a hot mid-morning practice and took a short break before helping with a previously scheduled baseball camp, he said he was up to more than 700 congratulatory text messages.

“I can’t even scroll back far enough to get back to the beginning. I mean, it’s insane,” Gilmore said. “I know there’s some people who think, ‘Oh, he’s just big-timing me.’ I’m not big-timing nobody. I sit there for hours and do it. ... It’s incredible. Heck, we have probably close to 100 former players coming out. That’s unbelievable, to think of how many of them think enough about this program and chasing this dream that it’s been that infectious in and among the whole group, it’s incredible.”

And yet, this all still hadn’t fully hit him, he said.

He didn’t expect it would until he and the team get to Omaha, Neb., on Thursday, and toured TD Ameritrade Park, and especially on Friday as they go through practice, media sessions and opening ceremonies and he sees it all with his own eyes.

“I think for me personally it will be way more overwhelming when I get there and all the festivities of Omaha are upon us and you really realize what it’s all about,” he said Wednesday. “Right now it’s just, we get to go to Omaha, but I’ve never been there. What does it actually truly mean? I mean, it’s hit me, but there’s been so much going on I haven’t really had a chance, honestly, I haven’t had an hour without the phone blowing up – an hour to myself [to think about], ‘This is what we’ve worked all these years for.’”

Gilmore had refused to go to the College World Series until he was coaching one of the teams playing in it.

After 21 years at Coastal Carolina, this group of relentless, resilient fellow believers have brought that dream to life for him.

“I swore I’d never go if I couldn’t coach a team good enough to go. That was one of the things in my life I was never going to do. I just made up my mind that I don’t want to be one of them guys that just goes out there to go out there,” Gilmore said. “If I could coach a team good enough to go, then I was all for it. The end for me ain’t too far away, so to get this opportunity is incredible. ...

“I had a bunch of my buddies say, ‘If you go there and do that it will really energize you to want to go.’ [Heck], I don’t need nobody to energize me to want to go. It’s all I’ve been preaching for 20-some years, I don’t need anymore of that. I just need to go.”

On Thursday morning the Chants worked out briefly on campus, then loaded up the bus to head to the airport after one more send-off with fans once again coming out to support them before the next step in this incredible journey.

Meanwhile, though, Gilmore wasn’t the only one still processing this reality.

“It’s funny, we’ve been joking about there’s only eight teams left, but it’s starting to get realistic now,” senior right fielder Connor Owings said. “There’s eight teams left and we’re all going to be competing for a national championship. So we’re starting to get over that little excited factor and starting to be like, OK, now we’ve got a real opportunity to go out there and prove how we play baseball and go win a national championship.”

The Chants (49-16) were still early in their scouting of the top-seeded Gators (52-14), who boast one of the most impressive pitching staffs in the country – one that is stocked with hard throwers and features an SEC-best 2.93 collective earned-run average backed by the conference’s best defense as well (.983 fielding percentage).

Florida features the No. 6 overall pick from the MLB Draft last week in left-hander A.J. Puk (2-3, 3.05 ERA, 101 strikeouts in 73.2 innings), but Gators coach Kevin O’Sullivan said junior righty Logan Shore (12-0, 2.24 ERA) – the 47th overall pick in the draft and the SEC Pitcher of the Year – will start against the Chants, according to the Associated Press.

Coastal Carolina will counter, of course, with an offensive roster that leads NCAA Division I with 94 home runs (including three in the first super regional game at LSU last weekend).

“We’ve seen a lot of very, very talented arms this season, and we’ve competed and stuck to our game plan and not really tailored it too much to them and have continued our success,” said senior third baseman Zach Remillard, who leads that power brigade with 19 homers and 69 RBIs. “But I know they have a lot of early draft guys and a lot of talent, and it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be competitive and we’ll see where it goes.”

Flipping the matchup around, Florida is led offensively by Peter Alonso (.373 batting average, 18 doubles, 13 home runs, 58 RBIs, 50 runs). After breaking his left hand on May 13, Alonso has returned on a tear, going 13-of-25 with four doubles, four homers and 11 RBIs in six NCAA tournament games.

“They also have one of the most athletic lineups in the country. There’s probably not another team in the country that can match them on a piece of paper, but they can only put nine on the field at one time,” Gilmore said. “We’ll do our best, and I’m not going to be deterred by that part. They’ve been beat, so they have to play as well.”

Gilmore didn’t name a starting pitcher, though it is a safe bet that one of the team’s junior righties Andrew Beckwith (12-1, 2.12) or Alex Cunningham (9-3, 3.58) will draw the assignment.

“I’m kind of toying with a couple things in my mind, so we’ll see,” he said.

As Gilmore addressed the team in the dugout prior to practice Wednesday, his message was a simple one – now that the Chants are here, they need to keep striving for more and not be satisfied just yet.

They’ve already gone further than any team in program history, their legacy is secure, but why stop here?

“We’re just going to go out there and compete and play the way we have for the last three or four weeks. There’s absolutely nothing to hold back at this point in time,” Gilmore said later. “We’re going there to do our best to win as much as we can possibly win, and we’ll go from there. Hopefully we can be standing next weekend.”

This story was originally published June 15, 2016 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Gilmore, players share early thoughts on College World Series matchup and trip."