5 hours ago 1

Men's College World Series: Red-hot Coastal Carolina batters Louisville, advances to championship series

Day 6 of the Men's College World Series started with arguably the most dangerous team in Omaha punching its ticket to championship series.

Coastal Carolina, now winners of 26 straight games, eliminated Louisville Wednesday afternoon. The Chanticleers used early offensive fireworks and yet another high-stakes pitching clinic to take down the battle-tested Cardinals.

Coastal Carolina 11, Louisville 3

Coastal Carolina served up its best first inning of the season on the doorstep of the MCWS Final. The Chanticleers scored six runs in the bottom half of the game-opening frame.

Even though Louisville challenged what at one point was an eight-run deficit, the initial run support Coastal Carolina provided was more than enough to get the job done.

The Chanticleers picked up their 56th, and biggest win, of the year, an 11-3 victory that has them on the verge of their second-ever MCWS title.

Louisville trotted out left-hander Colton Hartman to start. The sophomore hadn't pitched in more than a month, and it showed. Command issues, which resulted in back-to-back hit batters, loaded the bases and the offensive clip for the Chanticleers.

An opposite-way, two-RBI single from third baseman Walker Mitchell flung open the scoring gates. Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell pulled Hartman for Jake Schweitzer. The right-handed freshman eventually gave the Cardinals much-needed relief, but only after four more Coastal Carolina runs scored.

Chanticleers first baseman Colby Thorndyke was responsible for three of them as he tattooed a double to right center. Shortstop Ty Dooley capped the surge with a single up the middle to bring home Thorndyke.

A climb back into the game was always going to be steep for Louisville, especially against a Coastal Carolina team that entered with a 2.52 ERA during its win streak and just a 3.1 runs per game allowed average during the NCAA Tournament.

Chanticleers redshirt senior Riley Eikhoff, making his second start in six days, carried the torch with five scoreless innings to start the day, routinely getting himself out of traffic.

His outing ended in the top of the sixth, after Coastal Carolina designated hitter Dean Mihos drilled a two-run triple the inning prior to stake his team to an 8-0 lead. The next frame, a double to right center from Louisville first baseman Tague Davis scored one run and chased Eikhoff. He was responsible for two more earned runs, which Cardinals DH Garret Pike and second baseman Kamau Neighbors drove in with singles to make it an 8-3 game.

But southpaw Hayden Johnson got the Chanticleers out of a runners-on-the-corners jam, and Louisville never scored again.

And then Coastal Carolina immediately countered with two more runs. The second was the byproduct of the Chanticleers' 176th hit-by-pitch of the season, the most in single-season NCAA Division I baseball history.

Fittingly, Thorndyke polished off his banner day to wrap Coastal Carolina's daylong scoring spree with his fifth RBI, this one on a single to right in the bottom of the eighth.

Coastal Carolina will await either LSU or Arkansas in the best-of-three championship series.

Jell-O shot challenge update

Coastal Carolina looks the part of a MCWS champion, but the Chanticleers probably won't be winning the Rocco's Jell-O Shot Challenge.

It doesn't look like any team, for that matter, will be catching LSU. The Tigers, who set the competition's record with 68,888 Jell-O shots in 2023, are obliterating the other seven fan bases with 20,555 Jell-O shots consumed at Charles Schwab Field this year.

Entering the Coastal Carolina-Louisville matinee, no other fan base had downed even 8,000 Jell-O shots. At the time that game kicked off, 48,638 Jell-O shots had been accounted for on the board.

Read Entire Article