Gamecocks hope for fast start to SEC baseball season
South Carolina opened SEC play with six consecutive victories a year ago on its way to winning the SEC East title.
The Gamecocks hope to get off to another quick start in 2017 as they start league play this weekend against Tennessee.
No. 10 Carolina (11-5) will face an improved Vols squad in Knoxville in a three-game series beginning Friday at 7 p.m. Game 2 is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday with Game 3 at 2 p.m. Sunday.
“It’s a tough league to play uphill against,” Gamecocks coach Chad Holbrook said of the importance of getting off to a quick start. “You just try to keep your head above water as best you can and then, hopefully, you get on a little bit of a winning streak at some point during the year and get some separation from being in the .500 range.”
Tennessee finished 29-28 a year ago but enters conference play with the second-best mark in the league at 12-2.
The Volunteers are 6-1 at home, 4-1 on the road and are coming off an 18-4 win against Austin Peay on Wednesday.
“They’re pitching it. They’re playing defense. They’re not walking anybody. … It’s going to be a heck of a challenge,” Hollbrook said. “I just think they’re playing very, very clean defense right now. That being said, they also have, maybe, the player that’s gotten off to the best start from a position player standpoint in our league (Jeff Moberg), and he’s going to be tough to deal with.”
Moberg is hitting .475 with four doubles, a triple, five homers and 14 RBIs through 14 games and is one of six Tennessee regulars hitting better than .300.
The only team off to a better start in the SEC than Tennessee is Missouri, which opens SEC play after going 16-1 in nonconference action, with its only loss coming in the opener to Eastern Michigan.
While Missouri and Tennessee have the best records in the league, they are not among the five SEC teams currently ranked by Baseball America.
The list of ranked teams includes Florida, LSU, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.
Florida is the highest ranked SEC team at No. 5, followed by No. 6 LSU, No. 10 USC, No. 18 Ole Miss and No. 22 Texas A&M.
Holbrook expects another tough year in the conference. After facing Tennessee, the Gamecocks will host Alabama, travel to Auburn, host Vanderbilt and host Mississippi State before traveling to Florida.
With tough series the second half of the year at Florida and at LSU, it is, perhaps, even more important for the Gamecocks to get off to a good start.
“Coming into the (SEC) season, it’ll be, probably, the No. 1 league in college baseball. It usually always is,” Holbrook said. “But there’s a lot of games to be played. Each team in our league, with the exception of maybe Missouri and Tennessee, have had a few bumps along the way. That being said, you play 56, and there’s some awfully good teams and awfully good players in this league.”
This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 11:30 PM with the headline "Gamecocks hope for fast start to SEC baseball season."