CONWAY, S.C. — No. 24 Coastal Carolina erupted for eight runs in the fourth inning and rode another dominant start from
Riley Eikhoff to an 11-1, seven-inning victory over Georgia Southern on Sunday at Springs Brooks Stadium.
With the win, the Chanticleers (15-5, 3-0 Sun Belt) completed a sweep of the weekend series and opened conference play with three-straight victories.
Eikhoff (4-0) turned in another stellar outing, striking out eight while allowing one run on six hits over 6.2 innings. The right-hander didn't walk a batter and threw 62 of his 75 pitches for strikes.
He gave way to
Matt Joyce who got the final out of the game. For Joyce, it completed a long injury comeback and was his first appearance on the mound since June 6, 2022, a span of 1,013 days.
Dean Mihos sparked Coastal's offense with a solo home run in the first inning and later added an RBI single in the decisive fourth. The Chanticleers sent 12 batters to the plate in the inning, capitalizing on three hit batters, a walk, and timely hits.
Caden Bodine,
Sebastian Alexander, and
Walker Mitchell each drove in runs, while
Wells Sykes added a two-hit performance with an RBI.
Georgia Southern (10-9, 0-3) briefly tied the game at 1-1 in the third on a solo homer from Josh Tate, but the Eagles were unable to generate consistent offense against Eikhoff.
Coastal tacked on two more runs in the sixth, with
Freddy Rodriguez coming off the bench to deliver an RBI single and later scoring on a wild pitch.
The loss was charged to Georgia Southern's Joey White (0-1), who gave up two runs without recording an out in relief.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The Chants will play the next eight games away from home, starting with a midweek game at Campbell on Tuesday, March 18 at 6 p.m. ET on FloCollege. From there, CCU heads to No. 21 Troy (March 21-23), No. 4 Clemson (March 25) and Texas State (March 28-30) before finally returning home to play a return game with Campbell on Tuesday, April 1 at 6 p.m. inside Springs Brooks Stadium.
Tickets for all Chanticleer baseball games are available at
GoCCUSports.com.
