2025 MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 21, 2025

Kevin Schnall

Cameron Flukey

Caden Bodine

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Postgame Press Conference

LSU - 1, Coastal Carolina - 0

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall and student-athletes Caden Bodine and Cameron Flukey.

KEVIN SCHNALL: If it was going to be easy there would be more than one national champion. At the end of the day, we've got to regroup. We've won 26 in a row. Let's just call it is what it is; the odds were not in our favor to go 28-0 and win this national championship.

What's eerily similar is in 2016, we lost Game 1, 3-0, a left-hand pitcher threw a complete-game shutout. Again, we've got to respond, rebound, regroup. We've got Jacob Morrison pitching tomorrow. Answer the bell.

Q. Cam, outstanding day today on the mound for you. What was working so well against the LSU lineup?

CAMERON FLUKEY: I think everything was going well. To go through a lineup you've got to have everything. Everything was working, trusting what Coach Williams was calling and just pounding the strike zone.

Q. Caden, from your perspective back there, once you got through those first couple innings, maybe with some adrenaline, what did you think was the key for Cameron to settle into that groove there?

CADEN BODINE: He just pounded the strike zone. Had competitive strikes with his cutter and fastball, and really was locating it.

Q. Given what Jake has been for you guys this year you feel good to go the next couple of days?

CADEN BODINE: Absolutely, we've got our ace on the mound, even though we have a really good three-day starters, and we've got a lot of confidence in them.

Q. Obviously you knew what kind of challenge you were up against with Kade Anderson today and you had him on the ropes some early. What you wanted to attempt to do against him as far as your game plan, and how he was able to succeed from your perspective?

KEVIN SCHNALL: Well, let's just start, we were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. We just weren't able to get that big hit.

Tip your hat to him. He's a really good pitcher. There's a reason he's so successful. He has multiple pitches he can go to at any time.

I agree we got him, 25 pitches in the first inning and we did a great job. But in the sixth, seventh, we had two 10-pitch innings. After the seventh he was at 102, after the eighth he was 115. They let him go 130 so maybe it didn't matter.

But at the end of the day you gotta tip your hat to him. He made critical pitches when he needed to.

Q. You mentioned you had your chances. Is that kind of maybe the reason you get the runners in motion in the third inning? Sebastian Alexander had a really good jump, just kind of slides over the bag there.

KEVIN SCHNALL: Well, again, let's tip our hat to Anderson. We've got first and second in the third and I think we put down a solid bunt. He's calm, cool, collected, makes a play and gets our lead out.

Then we put a bunt down later in the game. Give Braswell credit. That's a pressure bunt and he throws the ball over the top, basically over our baserunner's left shoulder to collect an out, really big play.

And give Braswell credit there in the ninth. He's got a range extremely hard to his glove side and make that play in the ninth.

There's a reason why they're in this national championship game. There's a reason they're fielding over .980. You saw it tonight. They're very big plays in big situations, and you've got to tip your hat to them.

Q. A lot of this job is being a psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever. Do you have to worry about these guys focused or no?

KEVIN SCHNALL: I don't think so. We won 26 in a row. We're in a good space. We're in a good place.

We lost to a really good team today to a really good pitcher. You've just got to tip your hat to a guy that made some -- executed some big pitches.

And on the other end, you think about their run. We had Curiel 0-2 and he grinded it out to a 3-2 count and he drew a walk. And their three-hole hitter, Milam, gets a 1-2 base hit, gets a two-strike base hit with a runner at second to give them their first and only run.

But ultimately I thought we played very well. We had runners on. We just weren't able to get that big hit with runners in scoring position. Like I said, we were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position tonight.

Q. It wasn't just about the LSU pitcher on the mound. Your guy had a very good outing today. What did you see from your point of view, what was working against the LSU lineup? And how do you continue that success moving forward in the finals?

KEVIN SCHNALL: It's no surprise. Cam Flukey is as good as any pitcher in the entire country. We were extremely confident walking into this game with him pitching. And he gave us opportunity for us to win. And, like I said, unfortunately we weren't able to score. When you don't score runs, it's very difficult to win.