ODU Falls to Coastal Carolina, 12-1, in Final Regular-Season Game
Monarchs must wait until Saturday night to learn who and when they will play in next week's Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Montgomery, Alabama.
By Harry Minium
HAMPTON, Va. – Old Dominion’s baseball regular season ended on a disappointing note as the Monarchs fell to Coastal Carolina, 12-1, in seven innings on Saturday afternoon at Peninsula War Memorial Stadium.
The win allowed Coastal Carolina (44-11 overall, 26-4 Sun Belt), the Sun Belt Conference’s best team, to sweep the three-game series against ODU. The Chanticleers won, 6-3, on Thursday and 16-7 on Friday.
ODU (21-29, 15-15) has already clinched a bid to the Sun Belt Conference Tournament but needed one victory against Coastal to clinch a place among the top six teams, and thus a bye into the quarterfinals Wednesday in Montgomery, Alabama.
They will have to wait until late Saturday night to learn where they finish.
ODU needs Texas State and Arkansas State to both lose. If either team wins, a tiebreaker will determine who goes to the quarterfinals and who must play in Tuesday’s play-in round.
The single-elimination play-in round features the No. 7 through No. 10 seeds. ODU Head Coach Chris Finwood said it is exceedlingly difficult to win the tournament from the play-in round.
ODU got a solid pitching performance from Ethan Hubbell, who struck out five and gave up just one hit over three shutout innings.
ODU took an early 1-0 lead on a Maverick Stallings home run in the bottom of the second.
Coastal's Sebastian Alexander evened the score in the top of the fourth inning with a home run.
Coastal scored four runs in the fifth as Chad Born drove in a run with a fielder’s choice, Colby Thorndyke doubled in two runs and Ty Barrango drove in another with a sacrifice fly.
Coastal broke it open in the sixth, scoring six runs as Blake Barthol singled in one run, Born drove in two runs with a single and Barrango homered to drive in three more.
It was Senior Day for ODU, with 12 players being honored on the field before the game with their parents – Stallings, Bryce Jones, Luke Waters, Jack Slater, Frankie Wright, Tahraun Hammond, Kyle Edwards, Scotty Young, Kyle Finn, Connor Schumann, Alex Hunt and Blake Morgan.