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Jacob Morrison (Photo by Eddie Kelly/ ProLook Photos)
Three days into the College World Series, the bracket is beginning to tilt. Pitching staffs are separating. Depth is starting to matter. And every game—every inning—is beginning to feel decisive.
Sunday belonged to Coastal Carolina, which grabbed control of its bracket with another statement win. But elsewhere, the field reshaped itself in subtle and dramatic ways. There were blown leads, breakout performances and the kind of small-margin chaos Omaha reliably delivers.
Here are five takeaways from Day 3.
Player Of The Day
Three days in and BA’s Player of the Day designation hasn’t required much thought at all. Sunday belonged to Jacob Morrison, who turned in arguably the best pitching performance of the College World Series to date. He silenced a deep Oregon State lineup over 7.2 innings with seven strikeouts, just one run allowed and only three hits surrendered.
It was a masterpiece in every sense. Morrison threw 109 pitches, 79 of them for strikes, with a 75% first-pitch strike rate and 71% of his fastballs landing for strikes. It wasn’t just precision—it was conviction and dominance.
“I worked really hard in the offseason,” Morrison said. “I had the best staff around me to equip me to come back from injury and be this good.”
The outing marked Morrison’s 10th game this season of six or more innings with one or fewer runs allowed. That’s a feat matched in the past five years only by 2023’s golden arm, Paul Skenes.
And behind the brilliance was the quiet confidence of a mature ace who knows he belongs.
“I’ve always been a big strike-thrower,” Morrison said. “My freshman year, I threw a ton of strikes but I had a hard time keeping the ball out of the middle of the plate … That was a big thing, not only in my rehab last year, but even in freshman year development, throwing pitches where I want.”
Coastal head coach Kevin Schnall put it more succinctly.
“Winner’s win,” he said. “It’s absolutely criminal for a publication not to have that guy identified as an All-American.”
Baseball America is set to release its college All-Americans on Friday, June 20. There won’t be any crimes committed there.
Coastal Is In The Driver’s Seat
Three days in, and no team has looked more composed than Coastal Carolina.
The Chanticleers are 2-0 in Omaha and now sit one win away from a trip to the national championship series. Their 6-2 win over Oregon State on Sunday night was comprehensive, featuring smart baserunning, clean defense, timely hitting and another dose of elite starting pitching. They’ll await the winner of an elimination game between Louisville and Oregon State.
They’ve done it their way—gritty, composed and deeply team-oriented.
“It’s what we do every day,” Dean Minos said. “We practice just as hard as we play. And just to go out on the stage, doesn’t matter who we’re playing in front of or who is in the other dugout.”
Colby Thorndyke added: “We always preach just playing baseball the right way. That’s what we’re about.”
The offense has delivered when needed, often early. Thorndyke’s bases-clearing double in the first inning set the tone Sunday and helped Coastal seize control.
“I knew if I would just get us one run on the board any way possible with Jacob on the mound, it would really dump some momentum in our dugout,” he said.
That steady, business-like approach has defined the team’s postseason run. Their offensive identity is grounded in approach, not power.
“We approach launch angle between 10 and 30 degrees,” Thorndyke said. “Even in BP, our coach is on us, on us, on us.”
And while Coastal has played with the quiet confidence of a top-eight seed, they weren’t given one. That hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“I’m not going to play committee member,” head coach Kevin Schnall said. “They gave us the 13 seed. We owned it, moved on and did it the hard way.”
Arizona Coughs Up Season With Late-Inning Blunder
Arizona entered the eighth inning with a 3-2 lead against Louisville and left it without a season.
What occured was a cascade of defensive breakdowns and questionable decisions: an error, three singles, a wild fielder’s choice, a stolen base, a missed tag at the plate and a bunt that turned into a run. Louisville scored six times, turning a one-run deficit into an 8-3 win and sending the Wildcats home.
“We just did a lot of things that were uncharacteristic of us during this run,” Arizona head coach Chip Hale said. “Twice they bunted the ball, we didn’t get an out, a run-down. There were so many things. It just slowly slipped away.”
Arizona had been steady all postseason. But on the biggest stage, it unraveled.
“Unfortunately, doing everything you can to try to keep the guys positive and keep them with it, but you could see at certain points that there were guys who were starting to let their own disappointments, let that kind of cloud what was going on in the game,” Hale said.
The Wildcats had fought their way to Omaha. They just couldn’t finish.
Louisville Faces Do-or-Die Rematch With Oregon State
Sunday’s 8-3 win over Arizona gave Louisville life, but the Cardinals still have a mountain to climb in the form of an elimination tilt against Oregon State on Tuesday, with the winner drawing Coastal Carolina next. Louisville’s seniors know the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Kamau Neighbors leaned on routine to steady the group.
“Nothing really changed, I’d say, as far as mindset and routine,” he said.
Yet routine only takes you so far in Omaha’s unforgiving environment. Zion Rose reminded his teammates that momentum swings on the smallest plays.
“It’s funny how baseball is,” he said. “Everybody’s hitting hard line drives to center, but they’re getting caught, and the little bloop hit gets down.”
Louisville will need more of those bloop-down moments against a resilient Beavers squad that’s fought through its own elimination games throughout the tournament.
Tucker Biven, poised when his number is called, embraced the do-or-die mentality.
“Whenever I get my name called, go in and give this team a chance to win for these guys next to me,” he said.
He and the bullpen will have to be sharp Tuesday, because Oregon State’s offense responds to any loose pitch. Coach Dan McDonnell summed up the challenge succinctly.
“These games,” he said, “they’re one inning, sometimes one pitch, one-out type of games.”
Louisville has won that type of fight before, but against the Beavers—and in a bracket that also includes Coastal—it will need every ounce of focus, finishing ability and small-ball touch it can muster.
Huge Advantages To Be Settled By Monday Night
We’ve reached the part of the College World Series where every game doesn’t just shift momentum but also alters the math. Coastal Carolina’s win on Sunday secured the bracket’s most valuable currency: time. With two straight days off, the Chanticleers are rested, reset and need just one win to advance to the finals. It’s the kind of edge every team in Omaha fights to earn.
For teams like LSU and UCLA, who play Monday, they’ll rest just once before returning to the field due to the tournament’s scheduling. However, in a double-elimination format, needing to be beaten twice is the ultimate security blanket.
By the end of the night Monday, two teams will have that leg up. Coastal is one of them. The Tigers and Bruins have a chance to join.
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