Behind a fiery coach and a 26-game win streak, Coastal Carolina is no fluke - ESPN

OMAHA, Neb. — On April 22, the College of Charleston baseball team beat Coastal Carolina, and winning coach Chad Holbrook walked across the field to his car and glanced over at the third-base dugout. Coastal Carolina's players were on the bus, and the coaches were having a meeting. Holbrook considers those coaches friends — they're separated by less than a two-hour drive and essentially share a beach — and when he looked in, he thought they seemed down.

So Holbrook stopped.

«I told them, 'Why are y'all so mad?'» he said. "'You've got one of the best teams in the country. You're going to host a regional and probably be a national seed, and you're probably not going to lose the rest of the year.'"

Holbrook firmly believed the first three assertions. But not losing again? That probably was hyperbole.

Twenty-six games later, Coastal Carolina hasn't lost, and Holbrook seems prescient.

The Chanticleers, riding a 26-game winning streak, face LSU on Saturday in the Men's College World Series best-of-three championship round.

Asked Thursday about that April exchange, Coastal Carolina coach Kevin Schnall smiled and recalled that day, repeating the quotes almost verbatim. He disputed just one detail — that he and his coaches were glum.

«We were disappointed that we didn't play well,» Schnall said. «But we were more regrouping and making sure we're on the same page for the weekend ahead.»

Schnall, 48, is precise. He is a first-year coach who spent half of his life as an assistant and leaves nothing to chance. He was an All-American for the Chanticleers in the 1990s, replaced his mentor Gary Gilmore as coach and reached these current heights by calculating everything, including the messaging.

On Sunday, he went viral in college