USC baseball gets by The Citadel, but a concern on offense lingers
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The scoreboard is going to say South Carolina defeated The Citadel 7-1 Tuesday night at Founders Park, snapping the Gamecocks’ two-skid from the weekend. But the missed opportunities must be concerning for a team that has five games remaining before SEC play begins.
The Gamecocks stranded 13 against the Bulldogs on Tuesday, 10 of those in the first four innings when they left the bases loaded three times. In the last three games, South Carolina has stranded 35 runners and struck out 37 times.
South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said the staff met with the hitters earlier in the day Tuesday.
“It’s a work in progress for us. There’s no question about that. We’re not going to hide from it.” Kingston said. “We had a big hitters meeting today with all the players and all the coaches and talked about some things. That’s an area we know we need to improve on. We get on base a lot. We just need to make that next step and get over that hump of getting guys in consistently.”
“I think we’ve gotten a little bit pull happy as of late. A lot of that is how our hitters are preparing. It was a back-to-the-basics approach.”
Despite those shortcomings, Tuesday was a solid bounce-back from the weekend.
Talmadge LeCroy was a home run shy of the cycle, and the Gamecocks made the most against the seven Bulldog pitchers. South Carolina walked 11 times and was hit by a pitch while The Citadel hurlers threw 212 pitches.
Dylan Brewer and Talmadge LeCroy walked to start things off quickly. Ethan Petry and Kennedy Jones delivered RBI singles to stake the Gamecocks to a 2-0 lead after one inning.
Will Tippett walked in the second inning and eventually scored on a wild pitch.
South Carolina (9-3) broke things open in the fourth inning. Jones drew a bases loaded walk, Parker Noland added a sacrifice fly and Gavin Casas was hit by a pitch on a 3-2 count to bring in the three runs.
LeCroy said the hitters meeting was big and they’ve been able to put the two losses to Clemson behind them.
“It’s in the rear-view now. We’re going straight ahead,” LeCroy said. “It was a big series and we got caught on the wrong side of it. We know we have one of the best offenses in the country and we definitely have the best pitching staff in the country by far. We’re going to figure it out.”
That was more than enough for starter Eddie Copper and a trio of USC relievers. Copper, the freshman from Ivyland, Pennsylvania, had another strong midweek outing. He only allowed one run on five hits with six strikeouts and most importantly, no walks.
Parker Marlatt, Connor McCreery, Drake Quinn finished things on the mound off without allowing a run. They combined to pitch the final 4.2 innings and allowed two hits with no walks and seven strikeouts.
“It’s a testament to the job (pitching coach) Matt Williams has done,” Kingston said. “Tremendously impressed and happy for those guys. It’s exactly what we needed.”
South Carolina’s schedule this week
Wednesday vs. Davidson, 3 pm (SEC Network Plus)
Friday vs. Longwood, 7 pm (SEC Network Plus)
Saturday vs. Longwood, 4 pm (SEC Network Plus)
Sunday vs. Longwood, 1;30 pm (SEC Network Plus)
