Gamecocks on wrong side of pitchers’ duel in NCAA loss to Old Dominion
The stage was set for a slugfest.
Saturday night’s NCAA regional bout featured a No. 1-seed Old Dominion team that leads the country in home runs and a South Carolina slugger in Wes Clarke who can seemingly hit the long ball at will. With the way the ball tends to carry in the sticky heat at Founders Park, a crooked, football-like score didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.
Neither starting pitcher got the memo.
Both Old Dominion right-hander Ryne Moore and USC right-hander Thomas Farr seized control of the contest early, matching each other pitch for pitch in a classic, low-scoring postseason thriller. The Monarchs managed to win by the slimmest of margins, scoring the go-ahead run on a bases-loaded walk in the eighth inning to defeat USC 2-1.
With the loss, No. 2-seed South Carolina will face No. 3 Virginia in an elimination game Sunday at noon.
“It was a hell of a ballgame,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “Got to credit Old Dominion and their pitcher especially. He was really good tonight. He was ahead of all of our hitters all night and made it really tough on us, but I thought Farr was every bit as good. And we lost by a run. So I’m disappointed for our players, disappointed for that great crowd tonight that they didn’t get to go home happy.”
A day after defeating the Cavaliers in come-from-behind fashion Friday, the Gamecocks failed to cash in against the junior Moore a day later, batting 0 for 13 as a team with runners on base. Throwing from a low arm slot, Moore elicited ugly swing after ugly swing with his sweeping breaking ball, pairing it with a heavy sinking fastball that touched 92 mph.
At times wild — he hit five Gamecocks batters — Moore allowed just three hits and struck out eight over seven frames, throwing 122 pitches.
USC had moments where it seemed on the cusp of breaking through. In the seventh, the Gamecocks had runners on second and third with one out, but a controversial check-swing call by first-base umpire Kelly Gonzales drew the ire of the 7,315 fans in attendance. The batter, Andrew Eyster, showed immediate frustration, and Kingston came out to argue the call during the game but declined to discuss it afterward.
USC’s inability to score wasted perhaps the best outing of Farr’s career.
After struggling down the stretch and moving out of the Friday ace role, Farr set a career high by pitching 7.2 innings and throwing an economical 102 pitches. The quality of stuff has never been an issue for Farr, who touched 95 mph with his fastball Saturday. But Farr’s lack of command has hurt him throughout the season.
On Saturday, he worked the corners more consistently, peppering the strike zone and mixing in a changeup and curveball to keep the Monarchs off balance.
“With (Brett) Kerry going out yesterday and having to get in the bullpen pretty early, I felt like I wanted to try and go deep in this game to kind of help out with the bullpen and the load they have to take,” Farr said. “And so I was just really determined today to come out and just really try and pound the zone. I knew they were a really good offense. But I know I’m a really good pitcher. So I just felt like if I competed in the zone, they’d probably get themselves out a good bit of the time. And they did.”
Farr made just two mistakes. He allowed a solo home run to first baseman Matt Coutney in the second inning to give the Monarchs an early lead, which the Gamecocks erased in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Joe Satterfield.
With runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth, the Gamecocks opted to intentionally walk Coutney, one of the few hitters who seemed to see the ball well out of Farr’s hand. The move backfired when Farr lost the zone against Tommy Bell, walking him on a high 3-2 pitch to send home the decisive run.
Kingston said after the game he didn’t regret the move, calling it an “easy decision” to walk the left-handed hitting Coutney and set up a better matchup and also pointing to the fact that Farr had only walked one batter to that point. He finished with two earned runs on five hits and struck out four.
Despite the loss, Farr said he felt his confidence rise throughout the outing, crediting Old Dominion for simply pitching better. After Moore stymied the Gamecocks for seven innings, the Monarchs turned to hard-throwing reliever Aaron Holiday, who pumped in fastball after fastball and touched 96 mph, striking out four USC Gamecocks for a two-inning save.
That kind of hard-fought, nail-biting postseason loss can be debilitating for a club’s morale. After the game, Kingston and his Gamecocks huddled in the home dugout for an extended period, with the head coach offering words of encouragement. USC will have to flush the loss quickly with a noon start on Sunday.
“There’s no choice,” Kingston said. “I reminded them that it was a double-elimination tournament. And many, many teams over the years have dropped the game along the way. And that’s what we did tonight, we dropped a very, very close game that could have gone either way. We had plenty of chances. We left 10 guys on base tonight.
“And so the goal was to come win this regional. We could still do that. And it’s just going to have to be with the right mindset, the right positive attitude and belief, and if they have that, we still have a chance.”
South Carolina in NCAA baseball tournament
Who: South Carolina vs Virginia
When: Noon Sunday
Where: Founder Park
Watch: ESPNU
This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 11:11 PM.
