The Wildcats are a traditional power with four national titles to their name, while the Chanticleers are making the most of the program’s first trip to Omaha. “I mean, they just find ways to win. Regardless of the ballpark, we’re just going to tailor our game and just continue to play the game”. “But we’ve also been able to get down our sac bunts and steal some bags”.
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“I don’t care what people might have said about Arizona in January because you guys didn’t expect us to be here, either”, Oklahoma State coach Josh Holliday said.
The Cowboys (43-22) threatened in the ninth against Kevin Ginkel, putting two runners on.
“What a special performance”, Arizona coach Jay Johnson said. In 142.1 innings, he has struck out 114 batters and limited the opposition to a.202 average. Cooke was erased when he was picked off and thrown out at second.
Coastal Carolina has a veteran team but not one with a lot of, as coach Gary Gilmore calls it, “true baseball old-school savvy”. “He was moving the ball on both sides of the plate, throwing cuts, breaking balls, you name it, and locating. The first six innings, I don’t think we hit a ball square”.
The Wildcats got an important insurance run leading 1-0 in the seventh, but a calculated risk from second baseman Cody Ramer almost ran Arizona out of the inning.
If back in January, or heck, even in April, you were predicting that the College World Series would end with a West Coast vs. Southeast best-of-three-games College World Series finals, then you weren’t alone.
Coastal Carolina’s two best starters, Andrew Beckwith and Alex Cunningham, threw a high volume of pitches on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The Chanticleers won that game despite being held to four hits.
“I think he wanted to kill me last [Wednesday] against Santa Barbara when he hadn’t given up any runs”, Johnson said”.
“Our goal was improvement on a daily basis, and some of it was slow, I know I sound weird saying that now”.
Arizona looked to be ready to exit the tournament quickly, after sufferinga blowout loss to top seeded UL Lafayette. The senior almost hit for the cycle, with a single, double and homer. He moved to third on a groundout by Zach Gibbons and came home on a base hit by Ryan Aguilar to give the Wildcats. Following a walk to JJ Matijevic, Zack Hopeck fanned the next two hitters to keep it a 1-0 game. Cesar Salazar had a leadoff single and was sacrificed to second by Louis Boyd, ending the night for Hopeck.
A momentary hesitation by the Chanticleers’ infield allowed Ramer to slide around the tag, allowing catcher Cesar Salazar to score from third. Aguilar added another RBI single in the seventh to make it 3-0. Coastal took down NC State in Raleigh, scoring four runs in the ninth inning to come from behind in the Game 7 rubber match.
The Frogs had enough hitting, but not when it counted in the final two games. The Chanticleers start their best-of-three championship series against Arizona on Monday night, trying to finish an astounding postseason run.
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Through it all, though, Gilmore said he wants himself and his team to enjoy this, to savor the experience because it only takes a glance in the right direction into the crowd to be quickly reminded of how incredible this moment truly is for the Chants. It’s tough when you lead off a game with a ground rule double like that.
