STATESBORO, Ga. – The Texas State baseball team defeated No. 18-ranked Coastal Carolina 7-5 in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship Friday night at J.I. Clements Stadium.
 
The Bobcats (29-29), seeded No. 8 in the tournament, advanced to the semifinals and will face either No. 4 Louisiana or No. 5 Georgia Southern at 5:30 p.m. May 27. The top-seeded Chanticleers (37-19-1) were the defending national champions and had won 11-straight games against league opposition before being eliminated from the postseason by the maroon and gold.
 
TXST now owns a 3-1 record over CCU this season. The last time a league opponent defeated Coastal Carolina three times in the same campaign was 2015 (Radford). The last time the No. 8 seed defeated the No. 1 seed in the SBC Championship was 2011, when Little Rock knocked off Troy en route to winning the title.
 
Texas State led wire-to-wire after plating four runs in the top of the second. The Chanticleers sliced the lead in half in the home half of the frame and then plated one in the third to pull within 4-3.
 
The Bobcats extended their advantage to 6-3 in the fourth and added a crucial insurance marker in the fifth. CCU got a two-run home run in the sixth, but the team was shut down in the final three innings as TXST held on for the win.
 
Sophomore Jonathan Ortega and juniors Theodore Hoffman and Derek Scheible all had three hits. Ortega drove in three teammates and scored once, while Scheible touched home twice. Sophomore Jacob Almendarez was 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.
 
Sophomore Connor Reich (3-5) earned the victory after allowing five runs on eight hits in 6.0 frames. Classmate Anthony Pagano tossed a near-perfect final 3.0 innings to earn his first-career save. He struck out three, gave up one hit and did not concede a run.
 
Coastal Carolina utilized both ace starting pitchers in the game in Preseason SBC Pitcher of the Year Andrew Beckwith and All-SBC First Team honoree Alex Cunningham. Beckwith (8-2) failed to make it out of the fourth inning and suffered his first loss of the year to a league foe. The loss was also the first-ever in the postseason for the reigning College World Series Most Outstanding Player. The All-American was tagged for six runs on eight hits in the first 3.2 innings, while only striking out two and walking two. Cunningham allowed one run on five hits across the final 5.1 frames. He also walked two and struck out two.
 
For the fourth time this season, the Texas State pitching staff shut down All-SBC First Team member Kevin Woodall. He ended the campaign as the conference's home run king, but he went just 1-for-3 with a meaningless single and never recorded an extra-base hit in four games against the Bobcats. Sun Belt Player of the Year Billy Cooke and Sun Belt Freshman of the Year Cory Wood combined to finish 0-for-7.
 
All-SBC Second Team member Jordan Gore was 2-for-4 with a run, but he also committed errors on each of the first two plays of the game. Wood Myers finished 2-for-5 and was the only other Chanticleer with multiple hits. Seth Lancaster and Josh Crump both had two RBIs.
 
CCU wrapped up its first year as members of the SBC. The Bobcats have the distinction of being the first team to take a series off the Chanticleers in their new league and are also now the first team to eliminate them from the conference tournament.
 
Texas State is 7-6 all-time in the Sun Belt Championship and has won at least one game in all four postseason events since joining the league in 2014. The Bobcats have now made the semifinals in three of four trips to the conference tournament.

-TxStateBobcats.com-