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Coastal Carolina wins College World Series crown

By The Sports Xchange

OMAHA, Neb. -- G.K. Young belted a two-run home run to highlight a four-run sixth inning, and Cinderella team Coastal Carolina held on to defeat Arizona 4-3 to win the College World Series best-of-three championship series Thursday at TD Ameritrade Park.

Coastal Carolina (55-18) won its first national championship in any NCAA sport by winning a game that had been postponed from Wednesday night because of inclement weather in the area.

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It was worth the wait for the Chanticleers, who had upset LSU in the Baton Rouge Super Regional, and had been down to their final strike in the North Carolina State regional to advance to the CWS for the first time in school history.

Arizona (49-24) scored one run in the bottom of the ninth on a walk, a single and a sacrifice fly. The Wildcats had the tying run at third base and winning run at second after first baseman Ryan Aguilar's two-out double into the left-field corner.

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But Ryan Haug, who entered the game in the seventh inning for injured Cesar Salazar, struck out against reliever Alex Cunningham, who earned the first save of his career.

All four Coastal Carolina runs in the sixth inning were unearned.

Arizona, which had made two errors the entire CWS, made two errors on one play to allow the game's first two runs.

With runners at second and third base and two outs, second baseman Cody Ramer couldn't field a slow ground ball. His bobble allowed catcher David Parrett to score, and then Ramer fired the ball to third base in an attempt to throw out Michael Paez, but his throw was wild, and Paez scored.

Young followed by launching a 0-2 breaking ball, centered perfectly over the plate, over the right-field bullpen and into the stands for his 18th home run of the season. Young finished 2-for-4 with a double.

Coastal Carolina became the first team to lead the nation in home runs and win the CWS since LSU in 1997.

Arizona starting pitcher Bobby Dalbec, who at one point had retired 12 straight batters, didn't make it out of the inning. But he did strike out eight over 5 1/3 innings to push his CWS total to 25, the most by any Arizona pitcher in single CWS history.

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Arizona (49-24) responded with two unearned runs in the bottom of the sixth. Two walks, with a two-out error in between them, loaded the bases. Center fielder Jared Oliva picked up his team with a two-run single on a 0-2 pitch, chasing ace Andrew Beckwith, who'd thrown two complete-game victories in the CWS.

Beckwith, the submarine-throwing right hander, threw 93 pitches over 5 2/3 innings. He entered the game with an ERA of 1.00 with one walk and 12 strikeouts in the CWS. He walked three and had two strikeouts Thursday.

Bobby Holmes and Alex Cunningham, who was scheduled to start Wednesday night's game, combined for 3 1/3 innings of relief.

NOTES: Arizona pitchers entered Thursday's game leading the CWS with 1.43 ERA and 65 strikeouts through seven games. ... Both teams were able to change their starting lineups from Wednesday night's postponed game because lineup cards were never officially exchanged with the umps, although the only change for either team was Beckwith starting in place of Alex Cunningham. ... Thursday's game was the first CWS championship game played during the daytime since June 26, 2005. The June 30 date was the latest ever for a CWS game.

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