Don’t stop believing: 5 years later, 2010 national champion USC team remembers how they did it
Scott Wingo and Whit Merrifield remember the night of June 29, 2010, like it just happened.
As the South Carolina baseball program celebrates the five-year anniversary of its first national championship, those two figures also are ingrained into the memories of Gamecock fans.
Wingo stood on third base with one out in the bottom of the 11th inning in a 1-1 tie with UCLA in the second game of the College World Series championship finals. Wingo walked, moved to second on a passed ball and took third on a sacrifice bunt before Merrifield walked to the plate.
Oddly, neither was nervous.
Wingo, the free-spirited junior second baseman, refused to be overwhelmed by the high stakes.
“I was just out there having fun,” said Wingo. “I was having the best time ever. When Whit was up, I just believed. I knew he was going to get me in.”
Merrifield, USC’s right-fielder, didn’t expect to get a chance to hit against UCLA closer Dan Klein.
“I fully expected (UCLA coach John Savage) to walk the bases loaded and not to pitch to me and Jackie (Bradley) behind me,” Merrifield said. “I was thinking in my head that Christian (Walker) was going to have to face (UCLA pitcher Trevor) Bauer (who was warming up in the bullpen).”
One person nervous about ensuring the Gamecocks’ title chances was third base coach Chad Holbrook, who knew he had to make a decision that would keep Wingo from getting thrown out at the plate.
“The first thing in my mind was ‘This is our opportunity to win the national championship; let’s not screw this up,’ ” Holbrook said. “That’s what I told Wingo. I said, ‘Let’s concentrate here. This might be our only chance.’ We went through every scenario as quickly as we could.”
Holbrook briefed Wingo on what should be done on ground balls, shallow fly balls, high choppers, pitches in the dirt. Wingo smiles as he recounts Holbrook’s instructions.
“Within that 30-second period, he told me every possible scenario,” Wingo said. “I just said, ‘All right.’ ”
No intentional walk was issued to Merrifield as UCLA catcher Steve Rodriguez crouched behind the plate. When the count quickly went to 2-0, Merrifield knew the time had come to be aggressive.
“It wasn’t a great pitch to swing at 2-0,” Merrifield said. “From a hitter’s perspective, it was down and away. I just wanted to get the barrel on it and get it to the outfield. That’s what happened.”
Merrifield drilled a liner that bounded past UCLA right-fielder Brett Krill for the game-winner. Wingo, who had gone back to the bag to tag up in case the ball was caught, easily trotted home into the open arms of his teammates as they sprinted out of the third-base dugout.
That led to a joyous celebration on the field and in the stands of the final CWS game played at Omaha’s historic Rosenblatt Stadium. USC fans also celebrated in front of TV sets in dens and sports bars across the state. The improbable conclusion capped six straight wins after an opening loss had dropped the team in the losers’ bracket.
“It was just a moment where I let myself go. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had,” Adrian Morales, the third baseman, said.
Designated hitter Brady Thomas watched Merrifield’s ball land and sprinted out to join the pandemonium.
“As soon as he hit it, I knew that was enough to seal the deal,” Thomas said. “When I ran out there, I didn’t even feel my feet touch the ground. It was such a surreal feeling.”
STUMBLING AT THE START
The 2010 team didn’t get out of the gate like the coaches had hoped.
A season-opening sweep of the Duquesne series was followed by losing two-of-three on the road against an East Carolina team that had eliminated the Gamecocks in the 2009 NCAA regionals. USC coach Ray Tanner was so aggravated by the play of his team that he called a meeting when the bus arrived back in Columbia and blistered his players for their lack of intensity.
Right-hander Blake Cooper said the seniors were especially displeased.
“We looked at ourselves in the mirror and said, ‘This is our last go-around. We need to make the most of it.’ We wanted to be remembered as a great team, not just another team,” Cooper said.
One weekend later, things still weren’t going much better. Playing Clemson, the Gamecocks dropped another series to fall to 6-4 on the season. The Tigers won 19-6 in the rubber match at Carolina Stadium.
Two days later, USC was losing to Valparaiso 3-0 in the second inning when Tanner turned to Holbrook in the dugout and apologized for bringing the assistant down from North Carolina. Holbrook now chuckles as he recalled Tanner saying the program was due for a down season and this looked like it.
“We started slow,” Tanner said. “We were going to win our share of games, but it didn’t appear to be a team that would ultimately win the last game of the season.”
The Gamecocks rallied to win that Valparaiso game – the first of 13 straight victories on the way to a 19-4 start. That set in motion a strong run in the SEC as the Gamecocks battled Florida down to the wire for the Eastern Division title before falling to second with a 21-9 conference record.
“We made strides, but in hindsight, we got to a point down the stretch, from my vantage point, where we would make a play and then get a big hit,” Tanner said. “We would make a pitch and turn a double play. It just seemed to remain constant.”
The trial by fire made the players more determined with each passing game. Center fielder Jackie Bradley’s RBI single in the final inning won a tough road contest against Georgia, 8-7, in late April. Five days later, Thomas hit a two-run walk-off homer in the 11th inning to stun Alabama 9-7. But no series proved to be more important than the mid-May sweep at No. 12 Arkansas – which included a shutout by right-hander Sam Dyson – in three close games.
“That’s what happens when you play in the SEC and you get into those tight games,” Morales said. “You don’t panic when that happens, and it builds maturity and it builds experience. When we got into those situations, we didn’t change. We stayed even-keeled. That was the difference.”
It helped that Cooper emerged as an ace and owned Friday nights. Unafraid to pitch inside to hitters, Cooper outdueled one big-name arm after another, including Ole Miss left-hander Drew Pomeranz, a future MLB first-round pick, in a 5-0 victory. And right-hander Matt Price, a redshirt freshman, stepped up as the closer with a pair of saves in an early-April series win against Vanderbilt.
“Blake Cooper was the one constant throughout the year,” Merrifield said. “Every time he touched the mound, he was lights out. The same with Matt Price.”
Still, there was one more bump in the road, as the Gators won the season-ending series to claim the SEC East title, and the Gamecocks went a quick two-and-out at the conference tournament just ahead of NCAA play. The coaches had some concerns about the lack of offense – and so did the fans – as Tanner instituted two-a-day practices in preparation.
OFF AND RUNNING
Bucknell did its best to derail USC’s postseason trek before the train pulled out of the station. The Bison built a four-run lead in the sixth inning, but a weather delay prompted a seance that featured the unveiling of the Avatar spirit stick, a fungo bat with a baseball taped to it that would bring out the magic in this unique group of players.
Cooper provided the chip on the shoulder. Dyson brought an intimidating presence. Merrifield mixed leadership and enthusiasm. Morales brought toughness and vocal passion. Bradley displayed true star power. Shortstop Bobby Haney and Wingo supplied sparkling up-the-middle defense. Thomas had a lunch-pail work ethic. Pitcher Michael Roth infused the team with an off-beat humor. Freshman first baseman Christian Walker came in with quiet determination and a big bat.
Most of all, they didn’t like to lose. They had no fear of any opponent, and they never quit believing.
“That team was extremely tough-minded and very resilient. They flicked adversity off their shoulder like it was a mosquito,” Holbrook said. “Nothing really bothered them. On top of that, our best players wouldn’t tolerate any behavior that got in the way of winning, whether it was on the field or off. They wanted to win. It was neat to watch that leadership develop as the year went along. That’s what separated us.”
As the NCAA tournament progressed, that resiliency manifested itself again and again. The Gamecocks had to travel to Myrtle Beach to play Coastal Carolina in a best-of-three Super Regional. But enough USC fans showed up to dilute some of the Chanticleers’ home-field advantage, and the dramatic plays continued. Wingo turned a bases-loaded double play to save the first win, and Walker cranked a three-run homer late in the second win to get the team to the CWS.
“It was fun for me to stand there and think, ‘Well, are we going to get out of this one?’ And we would. ‘Are we going to be able to push a run across?’ And we did,” Tanner said of the team’s high-wire act.
Once the Gamecocks arrived in Omaha, they made things as difficult as possible with an opening loss to Oklahoma in a game delayed for hours by rain and lightning. They quickly bounced back by routing No. 1 Arizona State to stave off elimination. Just after that, the magic moments started again.
Down 2-1 in the 12th inning in a rematch with Oklahoma, Bradley stood at the plate with a runner on second and two outs. After working the count to 2-2 against reliever Ryan Duke, he took a close pitch that could have ended USC’s season if called a strike. It wasn’t. Bradley said, crazy as it sounds, that he never thought about being down to the last pitch.
“It was an inside fastball. I thought it was off the plate, and clearly the umpire did as well,” Bradley said. “From the coaches’ view and the players’ view (in the dugouts), it looked a lot closer because they can never tell whether it’s inside or outside. It was a good pitcher’s pitch, even though it was a ball.”
Bradley laced the 3-2 pitch through the right side to tie the game. After a walk to Jeffrey Jones moved Bradley to second base, Thomas drilled the first pitch he saw into center for an improbable 3-2 win.
“I knew he was throwing a lot of fastballs, and my whole time at Carolina, I was an early-in-the-count guy,” Thomas said. “If I saw something flat that I could get a good swing on, I was going to be aggressive. I didn’t like to take pitches. I wanted to swing and hit it.”
Holbrook thought Bradley, who scampered home on the play, missed third base, but Bradley still insists he got a piece of the bag. It didn’t matter. The Sooners didn’t appeal as the umpires left the field, and the Gamecocks celebrated at home plate.
“We were the team that never made an excuse about anything. We were the team that never gave up,” Bradley said.
The win sent the Gamecocks to the final four, but they still needed to beat rival Clemson twice to advance to the championship series.
FINDING A WAY
For the first game against Clemson, pitching options were limited because the two primary starters, Cooper and Dyson, were unavailable. Tanner, Holbrook and pitching coach Mark Calvi took the unconventional route. They selected Roth, a sophomore lefty situational reliever who had thrown 26 1/3 innings.
He responded by throwing a complete-game three-hitter in a 5-1 win, becoming a folk hero while making the coaches look like geniuses.
“It was fun, it was a blast. It helped the team get to the next day and kept us alive,” Roth said. “Five years down the road, you can look back on it and say, ‘Wow, that’s a turning point in my career.’ If I wasn’t asked to start that game and that hadn’t happened, then would I have been a starting pitcher the next year? That decision by coach Tanner to give me the ball changed the course of my career.”
The momentum carried over to the next day, when the Gamecocks beat the Tigers again, 4-3, to advance to the best-of-three finals against UCLA. Four straight wins had followed the opening loss to the Sooners, and the Gamecocks played as if they had nothing to lose, even against the team that smoked them 19-6 in March.
“We had fun playing those two games. During the game, they enjoyed themselves,” Holbrook said. “You get a sense as a coach if your team is uptight. Those kids were free and easy.”
Facing UCLA and its staff of big-name pitchers for the championship might have proved daunting for some teams. But not this one. Cooper didn’t care if he was facing Gerrit Cole, the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft a year later. The stocky right-hander stuffed the Bruins on three hits with 10 strikeouts over eight innings in a 7-1 win. Every USC batter got at least one hit as Haney drove in three runs.
The Gamecocks needed one more win, and, of course, they secured it on Merrifield’s hit and the 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief by Price.
As the years have passed, the players and coaches who viewed the team as one not loaded with raw talent have gained more perspective on how good they were. Roth, Bradley, Dyson and Walker have reached the major leagues, while Merrifield, Cooper and Marzilli are inching closer.
“At the time, we took on the ‘average Joes’ thing. Now you look back at it, and there are a bunch of guys knocking on the door of the big leagues or who have debuted,” Roth said. “Honestly, there were a bunch of guys on that team who believed in themselves and were very confident in who they are as players and what they could do on the baseball field. That’s what propelled us to make that jump and win the national championship.”
An all-night celebration followed the title victory, and everyone was running on adrenaline the next morning when the bus took off for the Omaha airport. Only it didn’t go straight there.
“Coach Tanner was not thinking about what happened the previous night. He makes the bus drive by the construction site of the new park,” Holbrook said. “The bus stops on the way to the airport, and he says, ‘Hey guys, we won the last one here at Rosenblatt. Let’s win the first one here at TD Ameritrade.’ Then we just went on to the airport. I thought, ‘No way he just did that. Can’t we just enjoy this one?’ Lo and behold, we did it. That was too good to be true.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2015 at 8:17 PM.