CONWAY – Zach Biermann’s third home run of the night with two outs in the bottom of the tenth inning gave Coastal Carolina a 14-13 victory over UT Arlington and a spot in the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship semifinals.
Biermann’s three home runs tied a tournament record and was the first time since 2002 three home runs were hit in a single game. Biermann drove in four RBIs on the night and was 4-for-6 on the night.
The Chanticleers (32-24-1) hit five home runs on the night, tying a Sun Belt record, previously matched in 2010. Kyle Skeels drove in five runs on the night, with two of his hits being home runs. Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year, Jake Wright, was 4-for-4 and drove in four runs on two doubles and two singles.
Dylan Gentry (2-1) earned the win for the Chanticleers after tossing three innings and allowing four runs on four hits.
After Coastal Carolina went up by four runs in the eighth, Gentry allowed UTA to load the bases and Will Olson tied it up with a grand slam. Prior to that Coastal scored 10 runs in three innings, putting up six in the seventh inning alone.
UTA’s Connor Aube was 5-for-5 for the Mavericks and scored four runs. His five hits tied a Sun Belt tournament record, which has been set by eight other players, including one earlier this week.
Olson matched Skeels’ total for a game-high five RBIs on the night, however, it was CCU’s Biermann who was the hero of the game.
After UTA took a quick 3-0 lead in the top half of the first, Biermann launched his first towering home run in the bottom half, scoring Wright. He then extended Coastal’s lead in the eighth to 13-9 on his second moonshot over the right field fence. After UTA pulled even and got the first two outs of the last half of the tenth, Biermann stepped up and hit his third and final home run of the night to give the Chants the win.
Biermann has five total home runs in three games in the tournament to go along with 10 RBIs.
With Coastal’s win, they will move on to Saturday’s semifinals to face tenth-seeded ULM at 12:30pm.