Thursday's S.C. college baseball tournament roundup, May 24

ACC, Durham
* Drew Wharton and Chris Williams homered in a six-run sixth inning and Clemson (45-13) clinched a spot in Saturday's semifinals with a 7-1 win over Miami in the final game of Pool B play Thursday night at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

The Tigers scored a second-inning run on Jordan Greene's RBI groundout, but Dylan Cloon tied the score for Miami in the fourth with a triple over the first-base bag.

Wharton broke the tie with a homer to lead off the sixth. Williams' three-run homer capped the outburst.

Kyle Wilkie had two hits as he extended his hitting streak to 24 games.

Tigers starter Brooks Crawford allowed three hits, three walks and a run in five innings. Ryan Miller.
went the final four innings, giving up four hits while striking out three.

The Tigers' Saturday opponent will be the winner of Friday's Florida State-N.C. State game in Pool C.

* Earlier, Duke scored four runs in the 13th inning to top Wake Forest, 6-2, and Virginia knocked  off N.C. State. 4-2.

Atlantic Sun, Jacksonville
* Top-seeded Stetson remained unbeaten in the tournament with a 2-1 win over Kennesaw State. Lipscomb stayed alive with a 10-5 win over New Jersey Tech. Jacksonville beat North Florida, 4-3, to advance to a Friday game with Stetson.

Big South, Lynchburg, Va.
* Winthrop (25-31) scored four first-inning runs but was shut out the rest of the way and lost the Gardner-Webb, 5-4, to be eliminated. Tyler Halstead and Hunter Lipcomb each drove in two for the Eagles. Gardner-Webb tied the score with two runs in the sixth and pushed across the winning run in the ninth.

* Earlier, Campbell remained unbeaten in tournament play with an 8-3 win over Gardner-Webb and Liberty stayed alive by beating Radford, 3-2, in 10 innings.

Colonial Athletic Association, Harrisonburg, Va.
* College of Charleston (36-19) lost twice to be cashiered from the tournament. The Cougars lost to Elon, 3-2, when the Phoenix got a bases-loaded single in the 12th inning.

Ari Sechopoulos had a two-run homer for the Cougars in the second, but Elon scored a run in the second and one in the seventh to force extra innings. Luke Manzo had three singles for the College.

Forced to play a second game immediately after the first, the Cougars surrendered three second-inning runs and were shut out until the ninth inning of a 5-1 loss to Delaware. The Cougars were limited to five hits.

* Also, UNC Wilmington knocked off top-seeded Northeastern, 9-2.

SEC, Hoover, Ala.
* LSU eliminated South Carolina (33-24), 6-4, in 12 innings. All six LSU runs scored with two outs. Carolina fell behind 2-0 in the first, but tied the score with runs in the fourth and fifth. After LSU went up 3-2 in the eighth, the Gamecocks forced extra innings when Jacob Olson singled in L.T. Tolbert.

A Tolbert error on a tough play with shortstop gave LSU a baserunner with two outs in the 12th.  A walk and a single followed to put the Tigers up 4-3. LSU closer Todd Peterson, who stayed in the game after his team took the lead, followed with a two-run double to the base of the left-field wall in his first collegiate at-bat.

USC got a run in the bottom of the inning and had the tying run at the plate when the game ended. Justin Row doubled and homered for the Gamecocks.

* Mississippi eliminated Georgia, 5-4, in 10 innings and Texas A&M continued its push to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament with a 4-2 win over Auburn. Because of a rain delay in the first game and a pair of extra-inning games to open the day, the Florida-Arkansas game was postponed until 11 a.m. Friday.

Southern, Greenville
* Wofford (36-22) fell into the losers' bracket with a 5-2 loss to Samford. Colin Davis homered for the Terriers to tie the score at 2-2 in the top of the seventh, but the Bulldogs got three in the bottom of the inning. Austin Edens hit his 52nd career homer for Samford.

* East Tennessee State scored three runs in the third inning and two in the eighth for a 5-2 win over Furman (24-28) in an elimination game. Four players had two hits apiece for the Paladins. The game ended with a Furman being runner thrown out at home trying to score on a double.

* Also, UNC Greensboreo eliminated VMI, 11-7, by rallying from a 3-0 deficit after a half-inning and Mercer got its second run-rule win in as many days, 15-0 in seven innings against VMI.

Sun Belt, Lafayette, La.
* Coastal Carolina (40-17) coasted past South Alabama, 16-4, to advance to Saturday's semfinals.  Parker Chavers had four hits, including a ninth-inning grand slam.  Seth Lancaster singled, homered and scored four times, Kevin Woodall Jr. was 3-for-5 with a homer and four runs scored. Zach Biermann singled, doubled, triple and drove in five runs while Kieton Rivers was 2-for-5 with four RBIs.

* Louisiana outlasted Little Rock, 19-16, in the completion of a game suspended by weather on Wednesday. Also, Georgia Southern eliminated Texas Arlington, 3-1, and Texas State ousted Little Rock. Troy beat Louisiana, 10-1, in a game that started shortly before midnight Eastern time.