Coastal Carolina thriving at 2025 College World Series by building an elite pitching staff
Coastal Carolina thriving at 2025 College World Series by building an elite pitching staff
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Which NCAA baseball teams could blow up the bracket
The Montgomery Advertiser's Adam Cole and The Southwest Times Record's Jackson Fuller break down who could wreck the tournament bracket.
Coastal Carolina's pitching staff, ranked second nationally in ERA, is a key factor in its success.
Most of Coastal Carolina's pitchers are homegrown talents who have shown significant improvement this season.
The team's new pitching coach, Matt Williams, and catcher Caden Bodine have played crucial roles in the pitching staff's development.
OMAHA, NE ― Jacob Morrison walked off the mound at Charles Schwab Field to a rousing standing ovation.
The Coastal Carolina starting pitcher had just finished pitching 7⅔ scoreless innings. He didn't walk anyone and struck out seven. Four outs from the bullpen later, the Chanticleers had clinched their spot in the College World Series semifinals, where they will take on Louisville on June 18 needing one win to play for a championship.
Morrison, the Sun Belt pitcher of the year, has a perfect 12-0 record this season with a 2.08 ERA. But Coastal Carolina coach Kevin Schnall didn't choose him to start him in its CWS opener − the Chanticleers didn't need to.
Instead, Schnall went with a combination of Riley Eikhoff, who is 6-2 with a 2.98 ERA, and Cameron Flukey, who is 7-1 with a 3.29 ERA. Coastal Carolina won that game against Arizona.
Armed with a pitching staff that ranks second nationally in ERA, the Chanticleers are now in the driver's seat to advance to the College World Series finals for the first time since their 2016 national title run.
"I think we can continue to be the best pitching staff in Omaha," Eikhoff told USA TODAY Sports after the win over Oregon State.
Perhaps even more impressive than Coastal Carolina's pitching success is how it happened. There aren't any big-name transfers among the group. Nine of the Chanticleers' 10 most used pitchers began their college careers with Coastal; the one who didn't, closer Ryan Lynch, started at a junior college. The group is also relatively young, including two freshmen and three sophomores.
The 2024 Chanticleers were in their final season under longtime coach Gary Gilmore. They were one of the last four teams to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. When Schnall, who was assistant under Gilmore since 2016, took over before this season, the team was picked to finish fourth in the Sun Belt.
A big reason why Coastal Carolina exceeded those expectations − winning the Sun Belt regular season and tournament titles and riding a 25-game win streak − was across-the-board improvement of the Chanticleers' returning pitchers. Many of those arms credit the success to the hire of pitching coach Matt Williams, who spent the 2024 season at South Carolina, as well as to the impact of catcher Caden Bodine, who is considered one of the top defensive catchers in the country.
"Pounding the zone has been a huge part," Lynch said. "All of our starters are very efficient. Get early strikes, pound the zone, try to limit walks, then just having our defense behind us. ... And then having (Bodine) behind the plate, just him getting pitches that would be off the plate or low that he's getting strikes for us."
Coastal Carolina's 8% walk rate is the lowest among teams in Omaha and fifth-lowest of all Division I teams in 2025. But while low walk rates are often associated with a lack of high-octane stuff, that's not the case for the Chanticleers, either. Morrison, whose fastball touches 95 mph at 6-foot-8, was ranked the No. 181 MLB draft prospect for 2025 by MLB Pipeline. Flukey, whose velocity has been up to 98 mph, is considered a top-three rounds prospect for the 2026 draft. Lefty reliever Dominick Carbone has a nasty slider.
For Morrison, a big part of his development was working through Tommy John surgery rehab. He had a 6.55 ERA in 13 starts as a freshman in 2023 but missed the entire 2024 season with injury.
"I've always been a big strike thrower," Morrison said in the press conference after the Oregon State game. "My freshman year, I threw a ton of strikes but I had a hard time keeping the ball out of the middle of the plate. That was a big thing, not only in my rehab last year, but even in freshman year development, throwing pitches where I want."
FAMILIAR FACES Oregon State, Coastal Carolina led by former players
Flukey, a sophomore who had a 5.73 ERA in 19 appearances as a freshman, credits his improvement to putting more trust in his stuff and becoming more willing to attack within the strike zone. This season, he has a 3.29 ERA and cut his walk rate from 10.9% to 5.7%.
Eikhoff, a fifth-year, had an ERA above 4.43 in each of his first three seasons, but in 2025 he has a 2.98 ERA. He was the one Schnall trusted with the ball in the opening game.
Part of Williams' impact has been the confidence he's instilled in the pitching staff. He came in during the fall and gave each pitcher a goal to work towards. From there, the pitchers went to work to build one of the country's best pitching staffs − one good enough to win a national championship.
"Coach Williams has a lot of credit to (our success), I think," Flukey said. "But also, as a family, we've all kind of pushed each other and made sure everyone's on their stuff, but Williams has been the start of that, and then we all kind of took a leadership role."
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
2 hours ago
LSU goes for 2nd national title in 3 years as it opens CWS finals against streaking Coastal Carolina
OMAHA, Neb. -- LSU and Coastal Carolina have met only two times previously as they enter the College World Series finals Saturday night. Those games back in 2016 have not been forgotten. Coastal Carolina swept the Tigers on their home field in super regionals on the way to their first national championship. The Chanticleers' opponent in the CWS finals that year was Arizona. Jay Johnson, now at LSU, was Arizona's coach. Tigers outfielder Jake Brown was 11 years old and living in Sulphur, Louisiana, at the time, and he recalled Friday how the players on that LSU team were superheroes to him. 'A little bit of heartbreak,' he said Friday. 'That was a great team, a team I think could have made a good run in the championship. Obviously, things didn't go our way that time. Looking forward to turning it around and making something good happen for us this time.' LSU (51-15) will be playing for its eighth national championship and second in three years. Coastal Carolina (56-11), which brings a 26-game win streak into the best-of-three series, is going for its second title in its second all-time CWS appearance. 'That would put Coastal Carolina baseball on a different planet," Chanticleers coach Kevin Schnall said. Cameron Flukey (8-1), who pitched four innings of relief against Arizona on June 13, will start for Coastal Carolina. Johnson has not named his starter. Ace Kade Anderson (11-1), who limited Arkansas to three hits and struck out seven in seven innings on June 14, is available. The Tigers and Chanticleers each went 3-0 in bracket play. LSU had to beat SEC rival Arkansas twice, winning the bracket final 6-5 in walk-off fashion after a wild three-run ninth inning. LSU's Brown is 4 for 6 with four RBIs in three CWS games and Jared Jones is 5 for 9 with two homers and six RBIs in the last two games after striking out five times in the opener against Arkansas. Tigers pitchers have walked just four in 27 innings. 'I think if you're at this point in the NCAA tournament, you've been battle-tested,' Johnson said. 'I don't believe there's anything we have not seen. ... I feel like we're well-trained and well-prepared for, in my opinion, probably the best team that we've played this year in Coastal.' The Chanticleers are yet to hit a home run at Charles Schwab Field. Colby Thorndyke has two bases-clearing doubles and is 5 for 12 with eight RBIs. Dean Mihos is 5 for 12 with a double and triple. Their pitchers have walked four in 25 innings. Johnson, in his fourth year at LSU after six at Arizona, said his heart still aches for his 2016 Wildcats team. Arizona erased a 4-0 deficit against the Chanticleers in the third and final game of the CWS finals and stranded a runner at third base in the bottom of the ninth inning. 'We were one base hit away,' Johnson said, 'and it took a couple of years to get past that. I think what I do remember about all of that is it has really helped me the next three times that we've been here in terms of knowing how to prepare for this.' Fast starts are a distinguishing feature of Coastal Carolina's offense. The Chanticleers have outscored their three CWS opponents by a combined 11-0 in the first inning and are a Division I-best 37-2 when they score first. LSU is 32-7 when it opens the scoring. LSU has won 16 straight CWS games when scoring at least five runs since losing 9-5 to Miami in 2004. Coastal Carolina's Schnall makes it a point to remind the media that the Chanticleers are a national power, but that doesn't mean in February he expected the 2025 team to play for a national championship. 'We were picked fourth in the Sun Belt,' he said. 'No problem. We'll move forward, keep our head down and keep grinding. That's what this team did. But we clearly felt like this pitching staff was going to be the best pitching staff we ever had.' The Chanticleers were 19-8 on March 29 and are 37-3 since. Coastal Carolina leads the country with a program record 176 hit-by-pitches this season, breaking UC Irvine's single season-record 175 in 2024. The Chanticleers have been plunked six times in three CWS games. 'They don't eat if they get out of the way,' Schnall said, drawing laughs. 'No, it's just something that our guys have bought into. Our guys are obsessed with getting on base. They understand the way you score runs is having guys on base. And any way you can get on base helps our team win.' LSU's Brown drew laughs at Friday's news conference when he explained the straightforward and simple way Johnson prepares him and his teammates to play. 'We came here to play baseball,' he said. 'We're not really scholars.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
After graduating at the age of 70 in December, Coastal Carolina alum attends his first College World Series
Coastal Carolina and LSU will go head-to-head in the College World Series championship games. Both teams are hoping to bring home some hardware, and as KETV NewsWatch 7's Eddie Messel reports, one recent Coastal grad is in Omaha to see the team after achieving a promise five decades in the making.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area sports calendar, June 20-22
BASEBALL BOXING GOLF MOTOR SPORTS WNBA SATURDAY BASEBALL 9a Detroit at Tampa Bay MLB Net 1p Boston at Giants NBCSBA (680, 104.5) 1p Texas at Pittsburgh FS1 4p N.Y. Mets at Philadelphia Channel 2 Channel 40 4:35p Minors: Glacier Ridge at Ballers (860) 7p Washington at L.A. Dodgers MLB Net 7p Cleveland at A's NBCSCA (960) COLLEGE BASEBALL College World Series 4p Finals, Game 1: Coastal Carolina vs. LSU ESPN ESPNU FOOTBALL Noon Women's NFC Championship: Washington at Texas ESPN2 1p CFL: Ottawa at Calgary CBSSN 4p CFL: Winnipeg at British Columbia CBSSN GOLF HORSE RACING 6a Royal Ascot Channel 11 Channel 3 Channel 8 9:30a America's Day At the Races FS1 MOTOR SPORTS MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY PREMIER LACROSSE LEAGUE 1p New York at Philadelphia ESPN 4p Boston at Maryland FS1 SOCCER 4p CONCACAF Gold Cup: Curaçao vs. Canada FS1 4:30p NWSL: Bay FC at NJ/NY Gotham Ion 5p USL: Oakland Roots at Birmingham Channel 36 6p FIFA Club World Cup: River Plate vs. Monterrey TBS TruTV 7p CONCACAF Gold Cup: Honduras vs. El Salvador FS1 SOFTBALL VOLLEYBALL WNBA 10a Phoenix at Chicago Channel 7 Channel 10 5p Los Angeles at Minnesota NBA TV SUNDAY BASEBALL 8:30a Baltimore at N.Y. Yankees Roku 10:30a Texas at Pittsburgh MLB Net 1p Boston at Giants NBCSBA (680, 104.5) 1p Cleveland at A's NBCSCA (960) 1:05p Minors: Glacier Ridge at Ballers (860) 1:30p Kansas City at San Diego, joined in progress MLB Net 4p N.Y. Mets at Philadelphia ESPN ESPN2 BASKETBALL 10a BIG3: Baltimore Channel 5 Channel 13 Channel 46 12:30p BIG3: Baltimore Vice COLLEGE WORLD SERIES 11:30a Finals, Game 2: Coastal Carolina vs. LSU Channel 7 Channel 10 ESPNU FOOTBALL 2:30p AF1 playoffs: SW Kansas at Nasville Vice 5p IFL: Arizona at Bay Area Panthers NBCSCA (1050) GOLF HORSE RACING 9:30a America's Day at the Races FS1 11a America's Day at the Races FS2 1p America's Day at the Races FS1 MOTOR SPORTS NBA FINALS 5p Game 7: Indiana at Oklahoma City (if necessary) Channel 7 Channel 10 (1050) PREMIER LACROSSE LEAGUE 9a Utah at Denver Channel 7 Channel 10 SOCCER SOFTBALL VOLLEYBALL WNBA Noon Indiana at Las Vegas ESPN 4p New York at Seattle NBA TV 5:30p Connecticut at Valkyries Channel 44 (95.7)
