Coastal Carolina baseball stays alive with dominant win over UNCW in Conway regional
A game away from elimination, Coastal Carolina took the lead early and never gave it away.
The Chants beat UNC Wilmington, 12-2, on Saturday in recovering from a seventh-inning collapse Friday night in the Conway regional.
CCU will play Sunday at noon against Saturday night’s Duke and Rider loser.
“That was a very prideful Coastal Carolina gut check today,” Coastal coach Gary Gilmore said after the game. “To come out and do what we did I can’t say enough about our guys.”
Gilmore said he expected a dogfight going into the UNCW matchup, and went with underclassmen Riley Eikhoff as the starting pitcher. Eikhoff started five games entering the elimination game, and the right-hander has gotten better as the season progressed.
Elkhoff continued the trend in his start against the Seahawks, efficiently working through the first six innings without surrendering a run. Gilmore’s decision to go with less-experienced starting pitching has proved effective.
Eikhoff and Friday’s starter freshman Liam Doyle entered the playoffs with a combined 10 starts this year and finished with a combined 15 strikeouts.
“We’ve had to put both in a starting role, and they’ve flourished,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore said after Friday’s extra-innings loss that Coastal was one hit away from “blowing the game wide open” several times, but the Chants stranded 16 runners on base. CCU took the lesson to heart on Saturday, starting in the first inning.
With two outs, full count and bases loaded, senior Graham Brown capitalized with a grand slam to put CCU up 4-0. It was Brown’s second homer in two days.
Caden Bodine struck next in the fourth inning, hitting another home run to increase the lead to 6-0. Bodine has been on fire for CCU at the plate the past two games. The freshman catcher has combined for seven hits and four RBI.
The Springs Brooks Stadium crowd was somewhat subdued compared to Friday’s loss to Rider, but they erupted with cheers in the sixth inning when the Chants drove home three more runs to put Coastal up 9-0 and remained engaged throughout, as fans behind home plate began chanting the number of consecutive balls UNCW pitchers threw.
But the seventh inning again proved nervous for Coastal. Eikhoff surrendered two runs, bringing a nervous hush over the CCU fans. But Eikhoff answered with back-to-back strikeouts, and the danger was avoided.
“What I always do is just try to locate pitches. People get themselves out and that’s ultimately what happened,” Eikhoff said.
CCU quickly responded and loaded the bases again in the eighth inning and scored two more runs to push the lead to 11-2, and the Seahawks never threatened again.
The win was a return to form for the Chants following their dramatic loss to Rider University on Friday. The Chants simultaneously gave up a no-hitter bid, a 5-0 lead, and a total of nine runs in the seventh inning. Coastal entered the contest having lost three in a row, but finished it with a performance reminiscent of their nine-game winning streak of mid-May.
Conway Regional scores, schedule
Friday
Game 1: No. 2 Duke 12, No. 3 UNCW 3
Game 2: No. 4 Rider 11, No. 1 Coastal Carolina 10 (10 inn.)
Saturday
Game 3; No. 1 Coastal Carolina 12, No. 3 UNCW 2
Game 4: No. 2 Duke 2, No. 4 Rider 1
Sunday, June 4 (network TBD)
Game 5: No. 1 Coastal Carolina vs. Rider, Noon ET
Game 6: Duke vs. Winner G5, 6 p.m. ET
Monday, June 5 (network TBD)
Game 7: Winner G6 vs. Loser G6 (TBD - IF NECESSARY)
