AUBURN, Ala. — Coastal Carolina pitchers Jacob Morrison and Hayden Johnson combined to scatter eight hits, and the Chanticleers won 4-1 Saturday to sweep the NCAA Division I baseball tournament’s Auburn Super Regional and reach the College World Series for the second time.
The eight-team CWS starts next Friday in Omaha, Nebraska, where Coastal Carolina’s first trip in 2016 ended with a national championship.
The Chanticleers (53-11), the Sun Belt Conference champions who were seeded 13th nationally when the 64-team NCAA field was set two weeks ago, swept through the double-elimination regional they hosted last weekend in Conway, South Carolina, to earn the trip to fourth-seeded Auburn (41-20) of the Southeastern Conference.
The Chants got halfway to their second straight sweep by winning 7-6 in 10 innings in a best-of-three series opener that started late Friday and didn’t finish until early Saturday after a lengthy weather delay.
In the second game, Morrison allowed one run on six hits with six strikeouts in six innings. Johnson (5-0) came on in the seventh and pitched three scoreless innings, allowing two hits and striking out five batters.