Gamecocks make a Texas-size statement with series win over No. 1 Longhorns
Matthew Becker stepped off the mound at Founders Park and let out a roar.
His fist pumps while en route to the South Carolina dugout ran in tune with the chorus of applause and cheers from the 6,010 patrons in the stands Sunday as he notched the ninth of his 11 strikeouts.
Hours after upsetting No. 1 Texas on the arm of ace Will Sanders, it was Becker who buoyed South Carolina to a 9-4 win and shocking series victory over the Longhorns.
“Going into it, obviously I was pretty nervous — number one team in the country, first start,” Becker conceded postgame. “But as soon as I got up there and saw my teammates behind me, I kind of just locked in and it all fell in place.”
South Carolina’s pitching staff has had its share of struggles in 2022. Projected No. 2 starter Julian Bosnic hasn’t played all year as he continues rehabbing from a flexor strain in his arm. Expected weekend starter James Hicks is also out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Head coach Mark Kingston stressed following Saturday’s narrow Game 1 loss to the Longhorns that the Gamecocks were forcing their pitchers to stretch an inning or more than perhaps capable given depth concerns.
Becker never hit that wall on Sunday.
Superhuman Texas slugger Ivan Melendez welcomed the Chapin product to the mound with a solo home run in the first inning that went an unofficial 493 feet and bounced off the box office in center field. That’s the first and only hit Becker allowed all day.
South Carolina’s late-blooming lefty mixed speeds and pitches as he worked the ball in and out of the zone with the same whip as a wiffle ball. He fanned seven Texas batters over his first four innings of work. It all amounted to a six-inning outing in which he allowed just four Longhorn baserunners.
“Didn’t expect six innings, one hit and 11 strikeouts,” Kingston quipped of siding with Becker as his Game 3 starter. “But when you give guys opportunities sometimes they really run with it, and he clearly did that today.”
The Longhorns’ pitching staff entered the weekend boasting a combined 1.79 ERA. The Gamecocks? They’d hit .198 over their four-game losing streak and .282 over their 12 total games played.
On Sunday, though, South Carolina continued its weekend-long renaissance at the plate.
Freshman phenom Michael Braswell added to his .400-plus batting average with a two-run single through the middle to spark a five-run fourth inning. Braylen Wimmer notched his third RBI of the series and 13th of the year when he singled home Brandt Belk on the next at-bat.
Virginia Tech import Kevin Madden, too, continued with his hot-hitting ways with a pair of RBIs between a single and a deep sacrifice fly.
The Gamecocks combined for 14 hits in the second half of Sunday’s doubleheader, the most they’ve recorded in a game all season. The nine runs South Carolina scored also tied for its most in a contest this year outside of a weekend set against George Washington.
“That just goes to show what our offense can do,” Wimmer said. “That’s one of the best pitching staffs in the country. We go out there and do that every weekend, we’ll be in good shape.”
Kingston’s squad entered the weekend fresh off a sweep by arch-rival Clemson and a midweek throttling courtesy of Xavier. A Texas sweep felt more like a certainty than an educated guess.
Fans down the third base line chanted “overrated” toward the Longhorns dugout as the Gamecocks worked through the final three outs of Sunday’s contest. Make no mistake, Texas is as good as advertised. South Carolina was simply better this weekend.
“I’m sure not many of the prognosticators predicted that today,” Kingston said. “But we don’t care.”
The sun set on downtown Columbia minutes before South Carolina mobbed reliever Parker Coyne near home plate following Texas’ final out.
That impending darkness? Perhaps it’s the daunting Southeastern Conference schedule that lies just beyond the horizon and entails a trip to No. 10 Tennessee next week.
That’s a concern for another day, though. Sunday, the Gamecocks shined a light on what can be in 2022.
South Carolina baseball upcoming schedule
- Tuesday: vs. Gardner-Webb, 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Friday: at Tennessee, 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Saturday: at Tennessee, noon (SEC Network)
- Sunday: at Tennessee, 1 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
This story was originally published March 13, 2022 at 7:49 PM.
