Clemson clinches rivalry series as South Carolina pitching falters
The Columbia Fireflies front office staff compared Saturday afternoon’s environment at Segra Park to every inn Mary and Joseph visited: There was no room.
The sold-out stadium of 9,070 — believed to be the largest in the history of the Clemson-South Carolina series — was packed with swirls of garnet and orange spilling outside the park and around the fences. The garnet slowly disappeared as the game went on with Clemson shaking off a slow start to beat South Carolina 10-2 and winning the rivalry series.
“We always talk about what the percentage of the crowd is in a rivalry series in a neutral game,” Tigers coach Monte Lee said. “Feel like there was a lot of orange and purple in the stands. Our fanbase came to support us here today, which was great to see. … You could see the amount of purple and orange in the stands after the game there to celebrate the win with our guys, so that’s always a special moment. Those are things you’ll always remember.”
The Tigers (10-0) are three games away from matching a 13-0 start by the program’s 2002 team. That 2002 season was also the last time Clemson won the first two games in the rivalry series. The Tigers have a chance to sweep against the Gamecocks (7-3) at 3 p.m. Sunday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson.
Nick Clayton will take the mound for Clemson in Game 3, while the Gamecocks’ starting pitcher has yet to be announced.
“We need to get together as a staff and then we’ll talk about it,” South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said.
The only people happier than Clemson and its fanbase was a man named Jake, who proposed to his girlfriend, Annie, midway through the fourth inning. Annie said yes as “Marry You” by Bruno Mars blared across the park sound system. The Tigers were down 1-0 at that point, then rattled off four runs in the bottom half of the fourth.
Three of the four runs came during Chad Fairey’s at bat. With the bases loaded, Cade Austin came in to relieve South Carolina starter Noah Hall, who threw 3.1 innings on the day. A wild pitch on Austin’s third offering allowed Cooper Ingle to score. Fairey then nailed a two-RBI base hit to score Bryar Hawkins and Max Wagner and later scored on Benjamin Blackwell’s hit up the middle.
“After seeing the pitcher (Hall) the second time through the order definitely helps a lot,” Ingle said. “For me, I watch (Dylan) Brewer and Chad and all the lefties’ at-bats, then the righties get to watch each other go up there. The more times you get to see him, the better chance you’re going to have in the next at-bat.”
From there, Clemson scored a run in every inning, which included three in the bottom of the seventh with the help of four walks issued by Parker Coyne.
The Gamecocks’ five pitchers Saturday combined for 10 hits, nine walks and six wild pitches.
Clemson’s pitchers, led by starter Nick Hoffmann, combined to only give up one earned run on six hits with one walk and five strikeouts.
“If you pitch and play good defense, you’re going to win a lot of games because you’re not going to beat yourself,” Lee said. “This game typically boils down to who beats themselves. You beat yourself when you don’t throw strikes, and we throw strikes. That’s one of the things we hang our hats on. You look at us through 10 games so far, we’ve done an outstanding job of pounding the strike zone and playing good defense behind our pitching staff. That’s been a recipe for success for us up to this point. Hopefully, it continues.”
The Gamecocks scored one more run in the top of the sixth Saturday when Andrew Eyster reached home on Kevin Madden’s hit. The team couldn’t get anything else going from there.
“We’re 7-3. We’ve played 10 games, we’ve got 50 more to go, at least. Yyou’re going to have bumps in the road,” Kingston said. “This is clearly a bump in our road of our season, but a marathon is 26 miles and some of the miles are not going to be real fun. Right now, we’re in one of the miles that’s not real fun, but we’re going to learn about ourselves. We’re going to dig deep and we’re going to find ways to get better.”
Clemson vs South Carolina baseball Game 3 schedule
Sunday: USC at Clemson, 3 p.m. (ACC Network)
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 7:25 PM.
