Bakich Calls Out College Baseball Umpires
By: Jason Priester June 25, 2025

Erik Bakich was not a fan of Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall being ejected in the first inning of the College World Series championship series on Sunday.

Umpire Angel Campos ejected Schall, as well as Chanticleers’ first base coach Matt Schilling, for arguing balls and strikes extremely early in the contest. If that name sounds familiar to Clemson fans, it should. He is the same umpire who ejected Cam Cannarella in the Tigers’ extra innings loss to Tennessee during the Clemson regional in 2023.

Bakich appeared on SportsTalk with host Phil Kornblut on Tuesday, and the head coach didn’t hold back when asked about his feelings regarding Schall’s ejection.

“The best umpires, the best officials, the best ones that are in charge of that — they’re really good at defusing situations,” Bakich said. “And the worst ones are the ones that instigate and antagonize and look for conflict.”

In fact, Bakich took it a step further, calling Campos and another umpire, Billy Van Raaphorst, by name. Van Raaphorst is the umpire who ejected Bakich himself, as well as assistant Jack Leggett, in the 14th inning of Game 2 of the Super Regionals last year when the Tigers were playing Florida in an elimination game. Jack Crighton was also ejected. Due to the ejection, Bakich served a two-game suspension to open the 2025 season.

“When you have an Angel Campos and Billy Van Raaphorst… guys that are on the side of looking for conflict, then conflict happens,” the head coach added. “Then you have some really good umpires — they’re professionals at diffusing a situation and they know how to manage a situation so that it doesn’t get to that point.”

Bakich, who led Michigan to the College World Series in 2019, felt like the ejections on Sunday were unwarranted and took the focus away from the game itself. LSU would go on to beat Coastal 5-3, completing a two-game sweep of the Chanticleers to capture the national title.

“It’s a shame that had to be a part of the narrative of that game,” Bakich said. “Not to take anything away from LSU, but that shouldn’t be part of the narrative of the College World Series national championship.”