"The Teal is For Real": Coastal Carolina Advances to College World Series Final

The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are headed back to the College World Series Final, routing Louisville 11-3 on Wednesday and finishing Omaha’s double-elimination round 3-0.

The Chanticleers scored eight unanswered runs to start the ballgame, including six in the opening frame, to snatch the momentum. Coastal combined for 11 hits, led by first baseman Colby Thorndyke’s 3-for-4, 5 RBI performance.

Coastal starter Riley Eikoff was superb, utilizing his sinker-slider mix to perfection. He tossed five scoreless innings before the Cardinals found some rhythm in the 6th, picking up all three of their runs off of Eikoff and Matthew Potok (all runs would be credited to Eikoff). The Coastal bullpen prevailed, however, shutting out Louisville the rest of the way and eliminating the Cardinals from the College World Series.

Coastal now awaits the winner of LSU-Arkansas as they get set for Game 1 of the CWS Final on Saturday.

The national media, as well as the NCAA Baseball Tournament Selection Committee, would have you believe that this is a magical run for a mid-major school– much similar to that of Coastal Carolina’s run in 2016.

Those in Conway know different.

After sweeping Auburn 2-0 in the 2025 Auburn Super Regional, Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall had a warning for the rest of the college baseball world.

“This is no Cinderella story,” said Schnall. “We’re one of the premier, most successful college baseball programs in the entire country.”

Some wrote this off as a mid-major coach lighting a fire under his clubhouse, but Schnall has a legitimate case. Coming into the 2025 season, the Chanticleers ranked 10th all-time in winning percentage. The program averaged 36 wins per season over its 49-year history, and a 53-11 record (and a 23-game winning streak) heading into Omaha only bolsters the first-year head coach’s claim.

This is a Coastal Carolina team that had the resume for a Top-8 national seed on Selection Monday. Many pundits projected the Chants to be #8, and at lowest #10. Instead, Coastal Carolina fell to #13 behind the likes of Oregon, Clemson, and Ole Miss– none of whom made it out of their own regionals. In fact, Coastal had swept Clemson 2-0 in the regular season series.

While it may be debatable where Coastal Carolina belonged on the bracket, one thing is indisputable: It wouldn’t have mattered.

Coastal entered the NCAA Tournament on an 18-game winning streak. With the help of 29 runs in three games, the Chants made quick work of the Conway Regional. They refused to lose to #4 Auburn, punching their ticket to Omaha to face Arizona, #8 Oregon State, and Louisville. Another three games, another three wins– as well as a berth to the College World Series Final for the first time since Coastal won it all in 2016.

56-11. 26 wins in a row. Two wins away from the program’s second national title.

The strength for this year’s Chanticleers: Pitching. As a staff, Coastal Carolina has a cumulative 3.22 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP (both rank 2nd in nation). Coastal is led by 6-foot-8 starter Jacob Morrison, who is having one of the best returns from Tommy John surgery in college baseball history. 12-0 on the season, a 2.08 ERA, and 102 strikeouts. He gets to pitch to catcher Caden Bodine, a finalist for the Buster Posey Award and one of the best receiving catchers in the nation. A Golden Spikes semifinalist and a switch-hitting phenom backstop– it’s the best battery in the nation.

Add sophomore sensation Cameron Flukey and veteran Riley Eikoff to round out the weekend rotation, as well as two of the nation’s best relievers in the nation in Ryan Lynch and Dominick Carbone, and you realize that Coastal Carolina has one of the best pitching staffs in the nation. We haven’t even brought up freshman Luke Jones, who emerged as the midweek warrior with two wins over Clemson and a win over Southern Miss in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament Championship Game.

Schnall said himself, before the season got underway, that this was “the deepest, most talented pitching staff [Coastal’s] ever had.” Quite the compliment, being as though he’s been on the coaching staff since that 2016 CWS title run.

Boy, was he right.

As for the bats, Coastal Carolina isn’t really considered a “star-studded” lineup. Sure, Bodine has been turning heads since he was a freshman. But this team is not led by a group of stars– the entire lineup is effective. All can hit, all can hit for power, and all can drop bunts to help manufacture runs. This group is gritty and aggressive, always looking for the extra 90 feet.

That’s why this success at the plate has been so contagious in postseason play– Coastal leaves everything on the field, day-in and day-out.

Thorndyke, one of the heroes in Wednesday’s matchup with Louisville, has emerged in postseason play. The sophomore caught fire in Game 2 of the Conway Regional, going 4-for-5 from the plate with two homers, one of which being a grand slam, en route to a six-RBI performance. He also scored five times in the contest, making him responsible for 11 of Coastal’s 18 runs.

Thorndyke is currently batting .344 in tournament play with 15 RBIs, one of many Chants stepping up in the big moments.

This winning streak, this run in Omaha, none of it has been easy. Coastal has been treated as the underdogs every step of the way– and every step of the way, the Chants have answered the call. It will be a Coastal Carolina vs. SEC matchup in the best-of-three series to decide 2025’s national champion, and the SEC has a well-deserved reputation as the best conference in college baseball.

But as this final series looms, it becomes clearer and clearer that this will not be a one-sided affair. This is not “just some mid-major.” This is not, as Schnall said, “a Cinderella story.” If you want to know just how competitive this year’s College World Series Final will be, look no further than ESPN’s Mike Monaco’s quote at the end of Coastal’s win over Oregon State:

“The Teal is for Real.”