FINAL: Gamecocks Use 5th Inning Outburst To Defeat Scrappy Gardner-Webb Bulldogs
You want the definition of a trap game, Mark Kingston and South Carolina's baseball team dealt with one today against the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs. Facing a team who was projected to finish second in the Big South Conference just three days before you begin a three-game series against your archrivals is one that can catch you offguard, and while Carolina struggled at the beginning of the game, they imposed their will as the evenign progressed.
At the beginning of the ballgame, both batting lineups struggled to find any sort of consistency at the plate. For the Gamecocks, left-handed pitcher Reid Bertram kept them off-balance, locating pitches on both sides of the plate and mixing up his pitches well which led to Ethan Petry being the only one to register a hit in the first two innings for South Carolina. Even when Bertram was surprisingly taken out in the 3rd inning, the Gamecocks stranded two runners on base.
As far as pitching was concerned, freshman Eddie Copper did a really good job of attacking the strikezone, and dictating most of the at-bats for Gardner-Webb, allowing just four baserunners in the first four inning. However, one of the hits Copper did allow in that aforementioned was a solo homer to Bulldog batter Humberto Torres, giving the Big South team the early momentum.
In the bottom of the 5th inning, Carolina's offense would explode for seven runs, one of which was earned via a bases-loaded walk, another via a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch, another via a single, another via a sacrifice fly, and the biggest play being a Gavin Casas bomb to right that measured out to 429 feet per the team's tracker.
From that point on, the Gamecock's bullpen took over, as the combination of Ty Good, Tyler Dean and Connor McCreery allowed just four Gardner-Webb hitters to reach base in the final four innings of the game, helping the team coast to their eighth victory of the season. They begin their annual rivalry matchup with the No. 10 Clemson Tigers in Founders Park on Friday night.
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