Coastal Carolina pitcher Alex Cunningham (18) throws in the first inning of an NCAA college baseball tournament super regional game against LSU in Baton Rouge, La., Sunday, June 12, 2016.
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This will be Coastal’s first trip to the College World Series and the Chanticleers will face the victor of NCAA Gainesville Super Regional (Florida or Florida State) at a date and time to be determined this coming weekend.
Then the Tigers were blown out in the Super Regional opener to California-Irvine, 11-5, at Alex Box Stadium.
Michael Paez’s game winning hit, a chopper over the head of LSU third baseman Chris Reid, scored Anthony Marks with the walk off game victor in the bottom of the 9th.
Making a strong effort to start the bottom of the ninth rally, Jake Fraley ripped off a triple to score the lead off man of the inning Cole Freeman and rejuvenate a possible comeback. In last weekend’s regional, he won the Chanticleers’ opening game as a starter and then got the victory in the regional clincher by throwing two innings of relief. Cole Freeman scored from second on the play.
The Tigers rode that momentum into the ninth as Freeman started the frame by reaching on an error. But Michael Papierski bounced into a fielder’s choice to end the inning with the score remaining 3-2.
Or quiz Greg Deichmann, Jake Fraley and Kramer Robertson, the Tigers’ most frequent clutch hitters, if Coastal Carolina’s pitching is good enough to dance at college baseball’s enchanted ball. That brought in Holmes who struck out Beau Jordan.
“I think Alex will tell you”, said LSU coach Paul Mainieri, “that probably the biggest mistake he made was walking the leadoff batter in the sixth inning”.
One of the most mentioned barometers is Aaron Nola’s 2-0 pitchers’ duel victory against Jonathan Gray and Oklahoma in the 2014 Super Regional round when two MLB Draft first-round picks looked every bit the part.
Poche retired Coastal in the bottom of the third with no runs. The power eventually came throughout the lineup, as the Chants bounced back from a 4-1 deficit.
Top of the seventh inning, Coastal added three more runs via the home run ball. Fraley hit a hard grounder down the first base line, but first baseman Kevin Woodall gathered it in and got the out. He pitched 7.1 innings, scattered 10 hits (LSU stranded 12 runners total) while allowing two runs and a walk with a strikeout.
With Antoine Duplantis at the plate, Freeman went to second on a wild pitch.
Lange went five innings gave up six runs on seven hits and struck out eight. LSU rallied to finish 39-17 and 19-11 in the SEC for fifth and beat No. 1 Florida three out of five times over the final days of the regular season to snatch a top eight national seed. Reid walked to load the bases, but Holmes got Papierski to hit into a force play, stranding three runners. Holmes came out the bullpen with runners on first and second.
LSU also has the stadium to do it, Gilmore said.
But it could have been worse, and after reliever Bobby Holmes battled back to strand the bases loaded with a strikeout and fly out to left, the Chanticleers had another chance to make history in the bottom of the inning. LSU’s final run scored on a dropped pop up, but Jordan Romero was then gunned down between first and second base to record the game’s final out. Lancaster punched it into right field for a single, driving in two runs to give Coastal at 6-5 lead. The Tigers trailed 3-1 entering the seventh and got a run back when Duplantis pulled a two-out double down the left-field line, scoring Chris Reid. Duplantis then hit a deep fly ball to right that Owings could not come up with and Duplantis had a double. Reid correctly waited at second, though, as it appeared Owings would make the catch.
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Both the Tigers and Chanticleers scored single runs in the fifth inning, as a Coastal’s Seth Lancaster doubled to leadoff, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a groundout by Billy Cooke.
