Gamecocks slam Charleston Southern with home runs, shutout pitching
Set to travel to one of the toughest road environments in the country this weekend at LSU, South Carolina baseball made the most of its final game at home before the trip.
Powered by Josiah Sightler’s first career grand slam and a pitching staff that combined for a four-hitter, the No. 11 Gamecocks crushed Charleston Southern at Founders Park on Tuesday, 9-0.
“I think it’s the kind of game you want to have going into a big series on the road,” coach Mark Kingston said. “We’ve got to leave first thing in the morning (Wednesday), so we were hoping this wasn’t one of those games that takes you all night. I thought it was a really crisp game. ... That’s the kind of game you want to take on the road with you.”
On the mound, USC held the Buccaneers in check all evening and pounded the zone with strikes, walking just one batter. Freshman Jack Mahoney got the start and, overcoming a walk and single with one out in the second, needed just 65 pitches to go five scoreless innings, striking out seven.
“I kind of got out there and wanted to get into a rhythm pretty early, establish my fastball. That’s kind of my plan always,” Mahoney said.
Freshman Jackson Phipps, junior Wesley Sweatt, redshirt sophomore Julian Bosnic and freshman Magdiel Cotto followed, combining for four shutout frames, striking out four more Bucs and permitting just three base runners.
“Really impressed with our freshman pitchers especially tonight, but I thought all our pitchers were really good,” Kingston said. “Mahoney, Phipps ... Cotto are all freshman and Sweatt was really good too, so really good to see that.”
With the pitching so firmly in control, what wound up being the Gamecocks’ winning runs came in the very first inning — leadoff hitter Brady Allen was hit by a pitch, advanced to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run with Sightler and scored on a fielder’s choice from junior Wes Clarke. Clarke then scored from first off a double to the wall from senior Andrew Eyster.
That didn’t stop USC from piling on, though. In the third inning, junior David Mendham doubled the lead with a two-out, two-run home run to the left field corner, part of a 3-for-5 performance at the plate.
“He’s gotten hot lately,” Kingston said. “He made an adjustment with when he was starting his load back and how much he was loading into the back leg, and he says he sees the ball much better and he’s able to get the bat head out a little better.”
In the fourth inning, USC blew the game wide open.
CSU sophomore reliever Chase Gockel ran into trouble right away to start that frame, struggling to find the zone at all and walking the first three batters he faced on just 14 pitches. After he came out and the Bucs retired one on a force play at home, Sightler stepped in and rocked the first pitch he saw 108 miles per hour off the bat and 407 feet away, where it landed on Williams Street outside Founders Park.
“Walking up to the plate, me and Wes Clarke looked at each other, we were like, be aggressive, swing early,” Sightler said. “And it was a first-pitch fastball, trying to put a good swing on it. A home run was honestly the last thing I was thinking about, I was just trying to get a ball I could hit deep, get an RBI with it, but seeing it come off the bat and being able to look at it in the air was a really good feeling.”
The Gamecocks tacked on their final run in the fifth off a bases-loaded sacrifice fly from Allen, then cruised home from there, emptying the bench in the final few innings.
NEXT USC BASEBALL GAME
Who: No. 11 South Carolina vs. LSU
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Alex Box Stadium, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Watch: ESPNU
This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 9:56 PM.
