D1Baseball predicts the winner of Auburn vs. Coastal Carolina in the NCAA Super Regionals
D1Baseball predicts the winner of Auburn vs. Coastal Carolina in the NCAA Super Regionals Auburn baseball will face its toughest competition of the postseason in Coastal Carolina. Here's how D1Baseball sees this series shaking out.
Auburn baseball is set to face its toughest competition this postseason when it hosts Coastal Carolina for the NCAA Super Regionals at Plainsman Park.
Campus is buzzing as the Tigers are hosting an NCAA Super Regional for the first time in program history, and a record crowd is expected to witness this weekend's action as Auburn officials have added general admission viewing areas to ensure that Plainsman Park will be an electric atmosphere for the appetizer for next week's College World Series.
Will the Tigers feed off their home field advantage? Or will Coastal Carolina spoil Auburn's good time? Experts at D1Baseball shared their prediction for this weekend's series, and are split down the middle on how they see this series shaking out. Out of the 11 writers that submitted predictions, six are projecting the Tigers to advance to Omaha while five are siding with the Chanticleers.
Both teams will rely heavily on its pitching staffs to combat the strong sticks that will be on display this weekend. Seven of Auburn's top lineup pieces are hitting over .300 entering the series. The top three batters in Auburn's lineup: Ike Irish, Cooper McMurray, and Chris Rembert, have over 70 hits and double-digit home run totals. Coastal boasts comparable stats with six batters hitting .300 or better, with Blake Barthol and Sebastian Alexander creating the most problems for opposing pitchers. Not only does are the duo hitting above .300, but they have over 10 home runs each and have stolen over 12 bases. Alexander leads the team, as well as the Sun Belt Conference, with 27 swiped bags.
Both Tigers and Chanticleers will throw their top pitchers in game one: Cameron Flukey for Coastal Carolina and Sam Dutton for Auburn. Both aces have seven wins on the year and own over 90 strikeouts. Flukey struck out nine batters in last Friday's Conway Regional opener against Fairfield over seven innings, where he allowed two runs on three hits. As for Dutton, he struck out three batters and allowed five runs on seven hits in Auburn's 8-5 win over Stetson in the winner's bracket game last Saturday.
Game one between Auburn and Coastal Carolina begins at 8 p.m. CT and can be seen live on ESPN2.
Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Taylor on Twitter @TaylorJones__
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trenni Casey will be running — a lot — for a cause close to her heart
She is running and raising funds for multiple sclerosis research in memory of her aunt Sandi , who was diagnosed with the disease at age 25. She died at age 37 in November 1995, when Casey was in high school. 'I was just 4 or 5 when she was diagnosed, and we didn't spend as much time with her as I wish I had,' said Casey. 'I didn't really get to know her, and that's part of why I wanted to do this. Like I feel we didn't do enough for her to bring her joy in her life. We were busy, we were kids, we were all over the place. Everyone keeps telling me you didn't know any better, but I just always have wanted to do something to give back to that community and to honor her.' Casey will run her portion of the relay in her home state of Wisconsin, beginning in Plattesville on July 1 and concluding in Milwaukee on July 6. She said her plan is to run — and sometimes walk — 30 or 31 miles the first four or five days. Advertisement 'So that would leave me with just 8 to 10 miles on the last day,'' said Casey, who has been training for six months. She's tapering her mileage now as the race gets closer, having run 55 miles last week. Advertisement Participants in the relay are required to raise a minimum of $10,000. Casey, ever the competitor, has long surpassed that threshold and is aiming much higher. Related : 'I originally wanted to raise $30,000 in honor of the 30th anniversary of when Aunt Sandi passed away,' she said, 'but then I asked, 'What's the most anyone has ever raised?' ' She was told the record was in the range of $56,000. 'So I thought about it, and I was like, I'm going to try to raise $67,000, because my aunt would be 67 years old now.' Casey's fund-raising page can be found at: Back to college for Bradley Jr. ESPN was thinking about Jackie Bradley Jr.'s future as a broadcaster before he had given it any thought himself. The former Red Sox center fielder and two-time College World Series national champion at South Carolina joined ESPN in April as a college baseball analyst. So broadcasting must have been a career path he had thought about before his playing days were over, yes? 'Not for a minute,' he said with a laugh during a recent conversation. 'ESPN actually first reached out to me about it two years ago, but I was still playing and my wife was pregnant — we have four kids now. They reached out a couple of times over the years, but the time was never right until now. I'm enjoying it.' Advertisement Bradley, who has not filed his retirement papers with Major League Baseball, confirmed that NESN also reached out to him about working some Sox games. 'I didn't close any doors or anything,' he said, 'but I wanted to focus on the college game and give that my undivided attention. I wanted to learn how to do this first rather than get thrown into something that I didn't feel I was ready for.' During ESPN's coverage of the College World Series, which culminates with the best-of-three final between Louisiana State and Coastal Carolina beginning Saturday night, Bradley has been in studio along with Mike Monaco (a familiar voice to Red Sox fans) and Ben McDonald . 'I'm really enjoying it,' said Bradley, the 2010 College World Series Most Outstanding Player. 'It's been fun to see how much goes into production, how intricate it is, and how hard everyone works. I'm just a couple of months into this, so I'm still at the point where I'm paying attention to everything and asking a lot of questions and just trying to build trust and get better at it.' NBA Finals viewership down The NBA Finals have been a thrill for true basketball junkies, but viewership numbers can't be thrilling the league. Official Nielsen data for the Pacers' series-tying Game 6 win over the Thunder Thursday was not available at this writing, but through the first five games, the series was averaging 9.18 million viewers on ABC. That's down 19 percent from the Celtics-Mavericks Finals last season, which averaged 11.3 million viewers in the full five-game series. Game 7s historically have a huge spike in viewership. This series is worthy of such an ending. Advertisement Chad Finn can be reached at
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
4-star Alabama target announces official commitment date
Yet another Alabama Crimson Tide football recruiting target will be announcing their commitment decision over the coming days. According to a post on social media Friday afternoon, Roman Voss will be announcing his decision this upcoming Monday, June 23. Voss will decide between Alabama and the Minnesota Golden Gophers, two finalists he recently announced back in May. At the moment, Voss is currently considered as the nation's No. 207 overall player according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, as well as the No. 1 prospect in the state of Minnesota where he attends Jackson County Central High School. Voss, a four-star prospect, is also ranked as the No. 12 overall athlete nationally. The decision of Voss is yet another to add to what is a loaded next two weeks for the Crimson Tide. Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Scorching hot Coastal Carolina glides into CWS final looking to extend history
Sixty days and 26 games have passed since Coastal Carolina's last loss. Every team arrives at the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, on a hot streak of one form or another, having at least survived the gauntlet of two double-elimination weekends to be one of the final eight in competition for the national championship. But the Sun Belt regular-season and tournament winners have taken this to another level. The 23-game streak the Chanticleers carried out of the super regionals was the longest for any team entering World Series play since the current tournament format debuted in 1999, topping Oregon State's 21-game winning streak in 2017. "Once an umpire says, 'play ball,' our win streak goes away," said sophomore pitcher Jacob Morrison. "I really don't think that it ever carries over, is in our head, quite frankly." They've added another three at Charles Schwab Field. After topping Arizona and Oregon State, the Chanticleers beat Louisville 11-3 on Wednesday to reach this weekend's best-of-three championship series against LSU. With this winning streak in tow, the Chanticleers head into the series against the Tigers poised to make history – again. Nine years ago, Coastal came out of relative anonymity to capture one of the most unexpected banners in college baseball history. Then led by longtime coach Gary Gilmore, the Chanticleers spent more than half of the regular season unranked before hitting a grove in the second half of May. Coastal then won the North Carolina State regional, swept LSU in the super regional and won the final two games against Arizona to become the first and still only team in Sun Belt history to win the national championship. Coastal is still one of four non-major-conference teams to win the World Series since 1999, joining Rice in 2003, Cal State Fullerton in 2004 and Fresno State in 2008. After being picked to finish fourth in the Sun Belt poll amid questions about how the program would fare under first-year coach Kevin Schnall, a former Coastal catcher and MLB draft pick who spent the previous nine seasons as an assistant, the Chanticleers are in position to capture an out-of-left-field championship. "It's incredible, but it's not unbelievable," Schnall said after Wednesday's win. "And it's not unbelievable because we've got really good players, really good players." One is junior catcher Caden Bodine, a multiple-time All-America pick and "the best catcher in the country," Morrison said. Bodine leads Coastal in batting average (.326) and on-base percentage (.459), ranks second in OPS (.932) and entered the tournament having thrown out 16 of 44 would-be base stealers while posting a .998 fielding percentage. "It's very calming knowing he's back there every time," Morrison added. Morrison (12-0) headlines maybe the best pitching staff in college baseball. Coastal ranks second nationally in ERA thanks in part to the offseason addition of pitching coach Matt Williams, who spent last season at South Carolina. Morrison was named the Sun Belt pitcher of the year after missing last year following Tommy John surgery. Sophomore Cameron Flukey, who earned the win against Arizona, has cut his walk rate nearly in half and trimmed more than two runs from his ERA. Fifth-year senior Riley Eikhoff's ERA sits at 3.10 following the Louisville win after he posted an ERA above 4.43 in each of his first three years. The pitching staff embodies one of the crucial factors behind this year's success. At a time of extensive player movement through the transfer portal, Coastal has largely avoided the same roster turnover to grant a level of continuity that has paid dividends in the postseason. "Gary Gilmore was able to teach us how to assemble a roster," Schnall said. "It's not about putting together just the best players. You have to put together the best team. Sometimes money doesn't always buy that." Of the Chanticleers' 10 most-used pitchers, nine arrived as freshmen. The exception, closer Ryan Lynch, played on the junior-college ranks before joining the program. But the Chanticleers lost three of their four top hitters from last season and, in Gilmore, a Hall of Fame coach who engineered Coastal's development into one of the most consistent winners on the non-major level. "We had to figure out who was going to fill those gaps," Schnall said. Former transfers such as outfielders Sebastian Alexander and Wells Sykes have provided an offensive boost: Alexander leads the team in OPS (.948) and steals (27), while Sykes has added 37 RBI and 18 steals. The pair has also combined for 37 hit by pitches, part of Coastal's NCAA-record 176 on the year. "I think not just me but my teammates, we're locked in," Sykes said. "We're on a crazy win streak. We're really consistent. So I think that's helped everybody, not just me." The Chanticleers will face another major test against seven-time national champion LSU, which is 8-1 in the tournament after sweeping through World Series games against Arkansas and UCLA. The Tigers spent two weeks at No. 1 in the Coaches Poll and were No. 3 nationally at the end of the regular season. "We got a bunch of humble dogs in that dugout that are willing to do whatever it takes to win," Schnall said. "That's why we're one of two teams in the country still playing today."
