Conway, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina offense scored a season-high 16 runs on a season-high 18 hits, while the pitching staff held Maryland to just four hits and struck out 11 Terrapin batters on the way to a 16-0 shutout win on Friday night at Springs Brooks Stadium.

Coastal’s last double-digit shutout win over another Big Ten team in a 13-0 win last year over Michigan State on Feb. 22, 2019.

Junior starter Zach McCambley (2-1) picked up the win, allowing just two hits and three walks while striking out six over 5.0-complete innings.

With a double-digit lead, the bullpen did the rest, as the quadrant of Griffin Holcombe (1.0 IP, 1 hit), Jay Causey (1.0 IP, 1 K), Connor Kirkley (1.0 IP, 1 K), and Jonathan Blackwell (1.0 IP, 1 hit, 1 BB, 3 K) allowed just four baserunners over the final four innings of the game.

CCU’s offense exploded with a seven-run third and a six-run fourth inning to pull away from the Terrapins midway through the contest.

Freshman Makenzie Pate (2-for-3, HR, 2 RBIs, 2 runs) got the offense started with his first career home run as a Chant in the third. Fellow freshman Eric Brown (3-for-5, RBI, 2 runs) led the way with a game-high three base hits, while senior Scott McKeon (2-for-6, HR, RBI, 2 runs), redshirt junior Fox Leum (2-for-3, BB, 3 RBIs, 2 runs), and redshirt junior Jared Johnson (2-for-2, run) all had multiple hits in the win.

Led by Leum’s game-high three RBIs, the Chants had a total of 10 different players record an RBI in the win, including freshmen Cooper Weiss and Tanner Garrison joining Pate with two RBIs apiece.

Maryland’s Maxwell Costes (2-for-3) had two of the Terrapins’ four hits on the night, with Michael Pineiro (1-for-4) and Matt Orlando (1-for-3) each recording a single.

After McCambley pitched around a walk in the first inning, an error and a base on balls in the second, and a walk and a single in the third to strand five Maryland runners on base over the first three innings, the offense exploded in the bottom half of the third with a seven-run frame to fly out to an early lead.

Freshman first baseman Zack Beach led off the third with a single up the middle. Two batters later, Pate followed with a deep blast to left field for his first career home run to put the Chants up 2-0.

Back to the top of the order, McKeon hit a deep shot to left-center field to go back-to-back and put the home team in front 3-0. It is the first time that the Chants have hit back-to-back home runs since Kieton Rivers and Jake Wright did it against ULM on May 25, 2019, at the 2019 Sun Belt Championship Tournament last season.

The inning was far from over, as following a Nick Lucky walk, Alex Gattinelli doubled just inside the third-base bag to score Lucky all the way around from first to put the lead at 4-0 in favor of the Chants.

After a wild pitch moved Gattinelli up to third, Leum laced an RBI single to right field to keep the scoring going for CCU.

Two batters later, after a Brown single put runners on first and second, a passed ball and a throwing error on the catcher to third base allowed Leum to score on the miscue and put CCU up 6-0.

Weiss followed with a sacrifice fly to right field to plate Brown and cap the seven-run inning and put the Chants in front big heading into the fourth.

The bats continued to stay hot in the bottom half of the fourth, as Garrison, making his first career start, led off the inning by taking a pitch to the leg. Pate and McKeon followed with back-to-back bunt singles to load the bases with no outs.

Lucky then got in on the act with an RBI single to right field to score Garrison and drive the Maryland starter Sean Fisher (2-1) out of the game.

Two batters later, after a bases-loaded walk to Leum plated another Coastal run to put the home team up 9-0, Brown kept the inning going with an RBI single to left field to score McKeon and give the Chants a double-digit lead at 10-0 with just one out in the fourth inning.

A second sacrifice fly from Weiss drove in Lucky and moved both baserunners up to second and third with two outs.

After a walk to Beach loaded the bases, again, Garrison ripped a two-run single to left-center field to give the home team a 13-0 lead after four innings of play.

Coastal added another run in the fifth on a walk, wild pitch, and an RBI single off the bat of Leum and two more runs in the eighth on RBI singles from Morgan Hyde and Kyle Westfall to finish off the 16-0 win.

The Coastal defense again turned two double plays on the night both of which quickly halted Maryland’s offense in the inning.

The Chants (5-3) and Terps (6-2) will return to the field tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET for game two of the three-game weekend series.

Courtesy – Coastal Carolina Athletics