Special to CollegeBaseballInsider.com (photo courtesy of Coastal Carolina Athletics)
BATON ROUGE, La. – Two coaches were left speechless.
One coach, LSU’s Paul Mainieri, has been to five College World Series in his career and was responsible for Tiger’s sixth national championship in 2009. Under his direction, LSU has been a national seed in the NCAA Tournament five straight times, including a No. 8 national seed this season.
The other coach, Coastal Carolina’s Gary Gilmore, has been the Chanticleers coach for 21 years. Coastal Carolina has been to only two super regionals and has been a national seed just once. Both times, the Chanticleers were swept.
“When I got hired, I made the distinction of telling them that one day this program was going to Omaha,” Gilmore said. “And back then they thought I was smoking something; at least the looks I got when I first started.”
But don’t tell Coastal Carolina it doesn’t belong in the College World Series after a Michael Paez walk-off single handed the Chanticleers a 4-3 win against the Tigers Sunday night, completing a sweep at Alex Box Stadium.
“I just feel like it was destiny for us,” Gilmore said. “We got out of that [Raleigh] regional and pretty much everybody put us to bed. And we come away with two outs, get a big hit and get ourselves to here. We wiggled out of every game you could wiggle out of in the two days we were here.”
The Chanticleers never feel like they are out of any game, including when the tide seemed to be turning against them in the top of the ninth inning. After the game-tying run scored on Jake Fraley’s sacrifice bunt, which created a collision at first base, Coastal Carolina reliever Bobby Holmes left the bases loaded for the second consecutive inning.
Leadoff hitter Anthony Marks stepped to the plate in the bottom of the last inning feeling as confident as possible, realizing who was on deck.
“I looked at Mike, and I told him – we say it every time we come up: ‘Nobody better than me and you. We go, they go,'” Marks said. “I told him, ‘We’re going to take us to Omaha.'”
Marks drew a full-count walk against Hunter Newman, LSU’s reliable closer who hadn’t registered a loss in his collegiate career. The speedy left fielder then swiped second base to pave the way for Paez’s heroics, a high chopper over third baseman Chris Reid’s head.
Paez said he was motivated to pick up his freshman teammate, Cameron Pearcey, who replaced injured starting second baseman Seth Lancaster. Pearcey committed a critical error to lead off the top of the ninth, allowing speedy LSU second baseman Cole Freeman to reach and later score.
“Our second baseman made a mistake, and we knew we were going to get behind him,” Paez said. “And being a shortstop, I wanted to show him that we pick each other up. And no matter what happens, we’re going to have each other’s back.”
Added Marks: “Honestly, I don’t think anyone up here or in that locker room doubted that we could do this. Not one person doubted we could do this. I thought we were going to come in here and win the first two, but everyone in our locker room thought we could do it and never doubted.”
BEFORE THE LATE DRAMA
The Chanticleers grabbed two first-inning runs off LSU starter Jared Poche’, who was making his second straight appearance off four days of rest. But only one of their two hits left the infield.
Marks’ weakly-hit ground ball between Tiger first baseman Greg Deichmann and Freeman caused Deichmann to dive for it, and Poche’ wasn’t able to cover the bag in time.
Then, Marks tagged and advanced on a deep fly ball to center field. After a walk to Connor Owings, Marks scored on a third-strike wild pitch. G.K. Young’s two-out single plated Owings on the next at-bat.
“There’s nothing more frustrating for me than when we play poor fundamentals, because obviously the coach is responsible for that,” Mainieri said. “We work on things all the time, and tonight, we just had some miscommunications.”
However, Poche’ staved off Coastal Carolina scoring threats in the second, third and fourth innings, and his offense narrowed the deficit in the bottom of third.
A walk and balk brought Reid to second base, paving the way for Freeman’s RBI double down the third-base line. Antoine Duplantis followed by hammering a ball over Owings’ head, but Freeman was forced to tag up in case the ball was caught.
LSU third base coach Nolan Cain threw up a late stop sign as Freeman was rounding third base, netting only a double for Duplantis. With runners on second and third, Chanticleer starter Alex Cunningham induced consecutive fly outs.
The lack of production in the third inning would be a troubling sign of things to come for LSU, including swinging early in counts and an inability to keep the ball out of the air. Cunningham and Holmes combined to hold LSU to a 3-for-17 clip with runners in scoring position, and the Tigers hit into 14 fly outs.
“I’ve been told I have a high fastball spin rate, so it’s going to be easy to miss some barrels here and there,” Cunningham said. “You can look at my stats. I have less strikeouts than I have innings, so I’m not a strikeout pitcher.”
CLUTCH ARMS
Cunningham outlasted Poche’, who struck out six but was pulled with one out in the fifth and a man on second. Kevin Woodall, Jr. immediately followed by driving a single off of Tiger reliever Parker Bugg, but Bugg later stranded Woodall at third base.
Despite LSU’s second run coming across, Cunningham made it through the seventh by stranding runners at second and third. Holmes then replaced him in the eighth with two on and one out, and the lanky reliever said he felt relaxed as he made his second appearance in the super regional.
“Unbeknownst to LSU fans, when I came in the eighth, they played my high school walk-up song,” Holmes said. “I wasn’t too uncomfortable in that situation.”
Holmes struck out Beau Jordan on three pitches before conceding a four-pitch walk to Reid. With the bases loaded, Michael Papierski hit into a force out at second base.
It was more of the same for Holmes in the ninth after the tying run scored. He struck out pinch-hitter Brody Wofford and forced Jordan to fly out.
“To be honest with you all, I kind of black out in moments like that,” Holmes said. “But all season, just think about how far I’ve come, from the beginning of the year until now. I’ve been resilient, been mentally tough in those situations and all year, it’s really what’s given me an opportunity to be was placed in that situation.”