Welcome to my thoughts on baseball from the Carolina's.
This past weekend put the state of South Carolina on the college baseball map as #1 Vanderbilt played #3 South Carolina at Carolina Stadium. The three game series would determine the early favorite for the regular season champions of the SEC.
Friday nights matchup between the two teams saw Sonny Gray of Vanderbilt (potentially a first round draft pick) take on Michael Roth of USC. The billing lived up to the hype, as the game remained close through out. Carolina scratched across single runs in the 3rd and 4th innings. In the 7th inning, Carolina SS Peter Mooney hit a wind aided home run to left field that barely cleared the fence. Going into the 8th, Carolina led 3-0. Vanderbilt broke through in the 8th with a triple and a sac fly off of Roth. Matt Price entered the game for Carolina and struck out all 4 batters faced for the save.
Game 2 saw Vandy's Grayson Gavin take on USC's Colby Holmes. Vandy struck first as Kemp led off the game with a double, then scored on two ground outs in the first inning. In the 2nd, Carl Yastrzemski's grandson, Mike, made the score 2-0 with his first home run of the season. Carolina bounced back, and put 3 runs up in the bottom of the second on 3 singles and a walk. Vandy tied in the 4th on a Espisito home run. In the 5th, Carolina's Holmes ran into issues, and Vandy scratched out 3 runs to take a 6-3 lead that they would not relinquish on the way to a 6-4 victory, and a tied series.
The Sunday rubber game saw the two teams battle it out for the SEC East lead. Carolina's Jackie Bradley led off the game with a single, that was misplayed by Yastrzemski in right that allowed him to wind up on 3rd. He would score the next batter as Scott Wingo hit a double to right field. Later in the inning Carolina had two runners thrown out at the plate, and led 1-0 after 1. Vandy tied it in the second inning with an Espisito home run to left center field. It stated 1-1 until the top of the 6th inning when Vandy had back to back solo home runs from Westlake and Espisito to take a 3-1 lead. In the bottom of the 7th, Carolina scored 4 runs in the inning off of 6 Vandy pitchers. and led 5-3. Matt Price pitched 3 scoreless innings in relief, striking out 7 batters.
Overall, the series was played in front of 3 sellout crowds of 8,242 fans. That is a first in Carolina Stadium history. It marks the 5th sellout this year for USC.
Around the state, Furman used 7 Citadel errors on Friday night to score a 12-3 victory, and then used a Will Mizuki bases loaded single in the bottom of the 9th to take a 7-6, and series clinching victory. Sunday, Citadel bounced back, and 3rd game in 10 innings 9-7. Take away the first game, and this was the second best series of the week in the state.
Wofford scored 3 1 run victories, one in extra innings, to sweep Davidson over the weekend. Clemson went to Boston College and took care of business in a 3 game sweep.
Now for the 3 up....
1. South Carolina, although dropping a Tuesday game to The Citadel was not good, they rebounded well, and had their second series win over a #1 ranked team. With the series win, Carolina also is in the drivers seat for the SEC East crown, as they have series wins against all 5 divisional foes.
2. Clemson, after getting swept by North Carolina, they have gone 8-1. The one lone loss is not great as it was to Maryland, only the 3rd time they have one in Clemson in 58 games.
3. Wofford, after a lengthy loosing streak of 9 games, they battled through and swept Davidson at home.
and 3 down...
3. USC Upstate, they have gone 2-8 over their last 10 games, including conference series losses to Lipscomb and Belmont.
2. Charleston Southern, 3-7 in their last 10 games, and swept in conference by VMI.
1. Presbyterian, after beating Clemson, they are 7-13, and have lost 8 in a row.
Upcoming games of interest...
Clemson travels to Georgia on 4/20, Carolina travels to Mississippi St for a weekend series (4/22-24), and The Citadel takes on Charleston Southern and Coastal Carolina on the road.
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