‘One of the rocks’ Gamecocks baseball team will build on

When South Carolina released its preseason lineup with new head coach Mark Kingston still trying to figure out exactly how his Gamecocks would look, every spot in the lineup had two possibilities except one. That was third base, where Jonah Bride had been penciled in as the starter for a long time.

“Jonah Bride will be our third baseman,” Kingston said before the season began. “He will hit in the middle of the order.”

That’s what the senior from Owasso, Okla., has been doing since he arrived on campus from Neosho Community College in 2016. Bride started all 63 games as a sophomore and all 60 games last year at third base, and he’s expected to start them all at third base again this year.

“He is a calm but motivated presence for our players,” Kingston said. “He comes to the park every day to work extremely hard. He’s extremely coachable. Some days you think he’s a freshman because he’s always trying to learn and ask questions. To me, that’s a great characteristic. He’s one of the rocks of our team.”

That’s the role Bride wants to play for the Gamecocks (4-1), who start a three-game series with Charleston Southern on Friday at 4 p.m. at Founders Park.

“I want to be a leader this year,” Bride said. “Maybe in the past I have tried to be a leader, but this year I really want to step up, be one of those guys that the new guys can count on.”

Bride is off to a slow start at the plate this year, hitting .211 with two RBI, but Kingston is confident those numbers will rise. Bride is a career .283 hitter, who had seven home runs and 64 RBI in his first two years with the Gamecocks.

“There is no question about it,” Kingston said. “He’s going to have a great year offensively.”

Bride is tied for the team lead with 11 assists this year with a fielding percentage of .938.

“I think he’s probably the best defensive third baseman in our league and I’m hoping that he can have a great year, help us get back to an elite level and then pass him on to professional baseball,” Kingston said. “He’s extremely important to our team.”

Bride, too, hopes to help South Carolina return to the days when Omaha was the expectation every year, he said.

“There’s a mentality that we’re all carrying around here, and we’re ready to go,” he said. “We are still continuing to work. We still have the same goal.”

This story was originally published February 22, 2018 at 10:32 AM with the headline "‘One of the rocks’ Gamecocks baseball team will build on."