Coastal Carolina wins national championship, knocks off Arizona in CWS finale

Gary Gilmore has said at times this postseason that he felt as if his Coastal Carolina baseball team was one of destiny. Other coaches reached out to him with similar thoughts during this incredible, inspiring and seemingly improbable run.

And perhaps they all were correct.

The Chanticleers capitalized on back-to-back Arizona errors in the top of the sixth inning Thursday to score four runs and break wide open what had been a compelling pitchers’ duel to that point, and from there they held on through a dramatic ninth inning for a 4-3 win in the College World Series championship game before a crowd of 18,823 at TD Ameritrade Park.

The Chants (55-18) – who were down to their last strike at the NCAA regionals in Raleigh earlier this month, who won the super regionals on a walk-off single at LSU and then won five potential elimination games here in Omaha – are now national champions.

Coastal Carolina – a school of a just more than 10,000 students that many people didn’t know much about before these last two weeks – knocked off a handful of teams from the traditional power conferences to become the first program since Minnesota in 1956 to win the College World Series in its debut appearance.

And the dream that Gilmore brought with him to his alma mater more than 20 years ago – when the facilities and so many other factors made such a thought seem far-fetched – is now a reality ... and then some.

Gilmore worked for 21 seasons striving and grinding with the hope of one day just taking the Chants to Omaha, and then they go and win the whole thing.

Simply put, it will go down as one of the greatest accomplishments and stories in college baseball history with no shortage of individual heroes as well.

Junior right-hander Alex Cunningham struck out Ryan Haug on a full-count pitch to strand runners on second and third in the bottom of the ninth and seal the biggest moment in school history.

Junior righty Andrew Beckwith, who had already thrown a pair of one-run complete-games here, had further grown his legend by holding Arizona (49-24) scoreless until the bottom of the sixth when the Wildcats scrapped together two unearned runs on a two-out, two-run single by Jared Oliva.

By that point, though, Coastal Carolina had seized the momentum.

After managing just two harmless hits through the first five innings, the Chants started the sixth with a leadoff walk by David Parrett, a sacrifice bunt by Anthony Marks and a walk by Michael Paez. Arizona righty Bobby Dalbec responded with a strikeout of Connor Owings, but a wild pitch on the third strike advanced the runners to second and third with two outs.

With Zach Remillard up to bat, the Wildcats defense had shifted toward the left side of the infield and second baseman Cody Ramer was consequently in perfect position to end the inning on Remillard’s grounder up the middle and just to the right of the bag.

He bobbled it, though, as the first run of the game came into score, and then he tried to throw toward third to get Paez out after he had rounded the bag and that ball got away for a second error on the play as another run scored.

And G.K. Young followed by punctuating the breakthrough inning with a mammoth two-run home run into the seats in right field for his 18th homer of the year and just the Chants’ second here in this cavernous ballpark in eight College World Series games.

Arizona showed its poise by getting two runs back in the bottom of that sixth inning, starting with a one-out walk by Cesar Salazar and later with two outs an error by first baseman Kevin Woodall Jr. on a grounder from Kyle Lewis.

Beckwith walked Alfonso Rivas to load the bases before Oliva singled on an 0-2 pitch to get the Wildcats on the scoreboard.

With two runners still on, the Chants called on Bobby Holmes from the bullpen. He promptly struck out Louis Boyd to end the inning and cap his own incredible postseason with 18 2/3 innings pitched and just four earned runs allowed.

Beckwith, meanwhile, finished with two unearned runs allowed on six hits and three walks over 5 2/3 innings to earn his third win of the College World Series. Overall, he went 23 2/3 innings here in Omaha while allowing four runs (two earned) on 19 hits and four walks with 14 strikeouts.

Cunningham took over in the seventh and worked out of a jam with runners on first and second and one out by getting pinch-hitter Haug to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.

The tension was far from over, though.

Boyd drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the ninth and Ramer singled to right to put runners on the corners with one against Cunningham. Zach Gibbons plated one run on a sac fly to center to make it a 4-3 game, and Ryan Aguilar followed with a double to the corner in left to put runners on second and third with two outs.

But with a 3-2 count on Haug, Cunningham delivered a game-ending strikeout to finish this dream season in the most dramatic way possible.

Regardless of how many people nationally or here in Omaha knew anything about Coastal Carolina prior to this College World Series, nobody who witnessed this will ever forget these Chanticleers at this point.

After this team rallied back from a two-run ninth-inning deficit and waited out a 14-hour overnight weather delay in Raleigh to win that NCAA regional, after it swept LSU in the super regionals in one of the toughest environments in college baseball, after it then knocked off top-seeded Florida in its first game here and later rallied back through the losers bracket and again after losing the opener of this finals series with Arizona, yeah, maybe these Chants were indeed a team of destiny.

Whatever the explanation, they are national champions.

Check back for a full recap and reaction.

This story was originally published June 30, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina wins national championship, knocks off Arizona in CWS finale."