ATLANTA – Kaleb Freeman sparked a late rally with a solo home run in the eighth that brought the potential go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth, but Georgia State fell 4-2 in their series finale with Coastal Carolina at the GSU Baseball Complex on Sunday afternoon.

Georgia State (22-16, 8-7 Sun Belt) will open their Sun Belt series against Southern Miss on Thursday, April 17 at Pete Taylor Park at 6 p.m.

The loss overshadowed a strong start from Ross Norman (4-5), who equaled his longest outing with 7.0 innings, allowing just two runs on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

Head coach Brad Stromdahl, "We put up a really good fight all the way through. We had every opportunity to win games one and three and we just did not get a big hit. They got the big hit(s) and that's the story with good baseball. They're a top 25 team and they pitched like it."

Kaleb Freeman and Cooper Milford each went 2-for-4 to lead the Panthers at the plate.  Down 4-0, Freeman sparked Georgia State's rally with a lead-off solo home run that traveled 108 mph401 feet over the wall in right field to cut the deficit to 4-1.

That rally continued in the ninth when Milford hit a lead-off double off the wall in left field and scored with one out on Austin Sellers' base-hit up the middle to make it 4-2.  A base-hit by Michael Maginnis moved Sellers to second, and both runners would advance to second and third on a groundout, but Colin Hynek flew out to left field on a 3-2 count to end the rally.

Coastal Carolina (27-9, 11-4 Sun Belt) scored one run each with two outs on a double by Caden Bodine in the third inning and a solo home run by Blake Barthol fifth inning to take a 2-0 lead.  The Chanticleers would then add two more runs on three hits in the eighth.

Making his first appearance since March 5, Quin McManmon pitched a scoreless ninth inning to keep the game within reach as GSU made their rally.

CCU starter Luke Jones (2-1) earned the win with six scoreless innings, allowing three hits with two walks and six strikeouts.