Gators use small ball to nip USC

The two longest hits belonged to South Carolina. So did the biggest argument with the umpires.

The rest of the game, however, was a long trickle of singles, hit batters and stolen bases — all favoring visiting Florida.

The Gators won Friday’s series opener 9-3 without the benefit of an extra-base hit. True to their small-ball form, all 12 of the Gators’ hits were singles, and they added six stolen bases, three walks, four hit batters and three bunt sacrifices.

“We let their leadoff guy on six times and it came back to haunt us,” Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner said.

It was the fourth loss in a row for South Carolina (31-15, 11-11), which today will try to avoid its first five-game losing streak since 1997.

Before the slide, USC was in good position to be a national seed in the NCAA tournament. Now the Gamecocks are in peril of not even hosting a regional. And in the SEC East race, they trail first-place Georgia by 5½ games with eight remaining.

“We’ll be all right,” said USC second baseman Scott Wingo, who along with double-play partner Reese Havens had the game’s only home runs, both solo shots. “What’ve we lost, four straight? We’ve just gotta keep swinging. They’ll fall, then we’ll be all right.”

Gamecocks starting pitcher Mike Cisco lasted one batter into the fourth inning, his shortest outing of the season. In his past two outings, USC’s Friday starter has yielded 14 runs and 18 hits in 8 ð innings.

Cisco and the Gamecocks’ bullpen fell victim to the Gators, who excel at stealing bases and moving runners over.

“They had a hit and run in there that would’ve been a double-play had they not hit-and-run, and just did some things, some timely things, that pieced together,” Cisco said.

The top of the fifth featured two very unusual umpiring decisions:

On the first, the umpires overturned a ruling, calling a Florida batter out who was initially ruled safe on a bunt single. That resulted from a long and vociferous protest by Tanner, who later said the first-base umpire collided with Wingo and thus didn’t get a good look. He successfully appealed for the umpires to huddle up.

“They did the right thing,” Tanner said. “They did the right thing all night.”

Tanner was back out of the dugout minutes later when a likely double play was negated after umpire David Savage ruled that USC second baseman Scott Wingo intentionally dropped the ball. Wingo said he just dropped the ball, but the call did not end up mattering after the next batter popped out.

There were also some fireworks in the ninth inning. Florida’s Riley Cooper and USC’s Sean Wideberg had words after Wideberg’s pitch hit Cooper in the head. It was the third time Cooper was plunked in the game.

Reach Emerson at (803) 771-8676.