Six-run inning sinks South Carolina in series finale against Auburn
A disastrous second inning proved too much to overcome for South Carolina baseball on Sunday, as the Gamecocks dropped its series finale against Auburn, 7-5, at Founders Park.
With the defeat, Carolina (17-11, 2-7 SEC) has now lost its first three conference series on the season for the first time since 1992.
“We made improvements this weekend, but it’s still not good enough because we’re here to win,” coach Mark Kingston said. “Offensively, we did make some improvements. Our strikeouts went way down, and today was the first time in a while that we combined power with low strikeouts, so I saw progress. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t good enough. I felt like we should have won that game 5-2, 5-3, but we were real sloppy there in the second inning, and that’s why we lost.”
USC had the lead early in the rubber match, as senior first baseman Chris Cullen drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the first to make the score 1-0.
But sophomore starter TJ Shook fell apart in the second, and Auburn racked up all the runs it would need on the afternoon.
After hitting a batter with one out, Shook surrendered a two-run blast to deep center field from Auburn junior Will Holland, then walked the next two batters.
“Shook just lost it there. I don’t know how to explain that. Shouldn’t happen. He was fine in the first inning, got the first guy out (in the second), got the next guy 0-2 and then hit him, and he couldn’t control the bleeding,” Kingston said.
Shook was replaced by redshirt freshman Cam Tringali, who gave up an RBI single and then a three-run blast from sophomore Edouard Julien to make the score 6-1.
“It goes back to the guy before,” Tringali said of the home run. “I had a chance with two strikes, two outs, threw a fastball up, didn’t get it up enough so he got a base hit. And then the next guy, had a fastball in, clearly wasn’t in enough and he put a good swing on it (for a homer).”
The Gamecocks got two runs back in the bottom half of the inning, thanks to back-to-back doubles from junior shortstop George Callil and junior third baseman Nick Neville and two fielder’s choice groundouts.
But Auburn added what turned out to be a valuable insurance run in the third, with the Tigers benefiting from a throwing error, wild pitch and hit batter by the Gamecocks, then executing a successful double steal to score one.
From there, Tringali and freshman Brett Kerry combined to throw six innings, giving up two hits, no walks and no runs. And in the bottom of the eighth, South Carolina got some late life as redshirt freshman DH Ian Jenkins and Callil each connected on solo home runs to narrow the deficit to 7-5.
In the bottom of the ninth, sophomore second baseman Noah Campbell and senior center fielder TJ Hopkins led off with back-to-back singles. But a pop-up and a pair of flyouts, one from senior right fielder Jacob Olson to the warning track in the left field corner, ended the game and dropped USC to 3-8 in its last 11 games.
Next: The Gamecocks travel to Charlotte for their first neutral-site midweek game of the season, playing North Carolina State on Tuesday at BB&T Ballpark at 7 p.m.
Softball: LSU defeated South Carolina on Sunday, 9-1, to take the weekend series 2-1. The Gamecocks had evened the series up with a 7-5 win Saturday. USC (25-10, 3-8 SEC) opens a five-game homestand with a 6 p.m. game Wednesday against Charlotte.
This story was originally published March 31, 2019 at 3:01 PM.
