Wynkoop blanks Vols to carry Gamecocks

Senior left-handed pitcher Jake Wynkoop is threatening to put the South Carolina baseball team on his shoulders.

The second-most experienced starter in the SEC (37 starts) is pitching like a veteran who wants to carry his team to postseason play, posting his second dominant performance in two outings in a 4-0 win against Tennessee.

“I thought (Jack) was very good,” coach Chad Holbrook said. “Early in the game, he had some pop on his fastball, his curveball had some bite. He threw four pitches in there. If you can throw four pitches in the college game for strikes, in any count, you can beat a lot of people. He was efficient tonight as he was last week. He was terrific.”

The goose egg in the scoring column for Tennessee showed the same. Wynkoop (6-4), now with a 2.71 ERA, struck out five and walked one in 8 1/3 innings.

“I tried to come out and do the same thing as last week (a 5-2 complete game win over Vandebilt) which is get ahead of guys,” Wynkoop said.

Wynkoop became the 23rd pitcher in Gamecock history to win 20 career games.

“The defense played awesome today, (we had) some big swings of the bat. All in all, it was a good win,” he said.

The Gamecocks (26-17, 9-10 SEC) remain in good position to make the 12-team SEC tournament field. Friday night’s win, before 2,643 at Lindsey Nelson Stadium here, was the Gamecock’s ninth win a row against Tennessee (16-21, 5-14), a streak that began April 7, 2012.

South Carolina scored first with Gene Cone leading off the game with a bunt single, going to third on D.C. Arendas’ single to right and scoring on a sacrifice fly to the right field warning track by by Max Schrock.

The Gamecocks added two in the second when Connor Bright reached on A.J. Simcox throwing error with two out. The shortstop appeared to have trouble getting the ball out of his glove, then one-hopped a throw past first baseman Parker Wormsley. It was a costly error as Logan Koch followed with a two-run home run to right center, making it 3-0.

South Carolina threatened to bust open the game in the seventh but had to settle for one run after loading the bases. Vols’ catcher and Columbia native Dave Houser handled two 58-foot pitches with a runner on third, then second baseball Nick Senzel saved at least a run with a diving back-hand catch to his right of Alex Destino’s hard-hit ball. From the ground, Senzel flipped the ball with his glove to shortstop Simcox, who stepped on the bag and threw to first for a double-play.

Game two is at 1 p.m. Saturday (SEC Network Plus).

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 10:54 PM with the headline "Wynkoop blanks Vols to carry Gamecocks."