'I'm tired of losing one-run games,' Kingston says after USC loss to Citadel
South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston has seen enough disappointments to last a season and his message after the Gamecocks dropped a 4-3 decision to The Citadel on Tuesday at Founders Park is he hopes his team is tired of it as well.
Ben Peden hit a solo home run to lead off the top of the ninth inning for the winning margin in a game that was originally scheduled to be played in Charleston but was moved to Columbia because of anticipated weather on the coast. It’s the Bulldogs' first win in Columbia since 2009. USC had won seven straight in the series.
“I told them we need to be better than that and I’m tired of losing one-run games,” Kingston said of his message to his team afterward. “I hope they’re tired of it. It’s unacceptable. We’ll get it fixed, but I’m tired of losing one-run ball games, especially in our ballpark.”
It’s the fifth one or two-run loss for the Gamecocks (13-8) this season. Four of those games have come at home.
The frustration boiled down to a few plays South Carolina was unable to make and the Bulldogs were able to capitalize on.
The first came in the first inning when The Citadel (9-11) scratched across a run. Jeffrey Brown singled and moved to second after a walk to Jonathan Sabo from USC starter Logan Chapman. A sacrifice bunt moved the runners up, and Brown scored on a grounder to Chapman.
It looked like Chapman had a chance to get the runner at the plate, but he elected to go for the out at first.
With the game tied at 3 in the eighth inning, Madison Stokes led off with a triple to the deepest part of the ball park. But he was stranded at third when former Lexington High product Jordan Buster was able to get a ground ball to second, a strikeout and fly ball to center to end the inning.
Peden then lifted the first pitch off the ninth inning over the right field wall off of Parker Coyne (1-1).
“To me, the frustrating thing is we keep letting one or two runs a game be the difference,” Kingston said. “Runs that should not score. Throwing the ball to first when you should throw it home, not covering first base. We’re doing something like that in these one-run games that should not be happening.”
Buster grew up watching Carolina baseball games and has had an opportunity to play at Founders Park plenty of times before, but it was a thrill for the right-hander to earn the win to improve to 3-1 on the season.
He pitched the final 2.2 innings and allowed one hit with five strikeouts, a walk and an intentional walk.
“It’s great. I’ve played here a lot. I’ve seen them as I was growing up, and it was great growing up in Lexington and coming to these games. But playing in this atmosphere before really helped calm my nerves a little bit,” Buster said.
“Us being able to get out of that inning was huge. Then Ben came up with the big hit really helped out our team.”
Carlos Cortes went 2-for-3, and his solo home run in the seventh inning tied the game at three. But the Gamecocks couldn’t adjust to the three Citadel pitchers and managed only five hits after collecting just six hits in a series-ending one-run loss to Florida on Sunday.
South Carolina will travel to Georgia to open a three-game series on Friday, and Kingston hopes by then the Gamecocks will have figured some things out.
“I looked in our dugout many times and I saw a team trying to win, but we just weren’t good enough to win,” Kingston said. “We didn’t make enough adjustments at the plate. We made some plays on defense that gave them runs that shouldn’t have been there. Credit to them, they hit the home run in the ninth right after we couldn’t get the leadoff triple home.”
This story was originally published March 20, 2018 at 10:06 PM with the headline "'I'm tired of losing one-run games,' Kingston says after USC loss to Citadel."