South Carolina’s bats, Will Sanders’ arm power Gamecocks past Vandy to even series

Baseball will always remind you that it’s a funny game and no matter what is expected, anything can happen.

Vanderbilt entered Friday’s game on an 18-game winning streak and had Carter Holton on the mound with his 4-0 record and 2.10 ERA. South Carolina was going in the other direction, coming in with five straight losses and looking listless in its first four SEC contests.

The hope was staff ace Will Sanders could keep them close and they could break the recent downward trend.

By the end of the second inning, Holton’s night was done and the Gamecocks looked like an offensive juggernaut. It ended as an 8-2 South Carolina victory Friday night at Founders Park and tied the Thursday-Friday-Saturday SEC series.

“I thought it was maybe one of our best games of the year, especially under the circumstances,” South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said. “Great pitching, great defense and the offense came to play. I don’t know if anybody saw that coming with who they had on the mound tonight. For us to have that kind of performance was really good to see.”

The Gamecocks (11-11, 1-4 SEC) came into the contest with five runs and 17 hits in their first four SEC games. They hadn’t plated a run in 19 innings in conference play, but none of that mattered against Holton.

It started with a three-run first inning where South Carolina collected four hits. The big blows were RBI singles by Andrew Eyster and Michael Braswell and a sacrifice fly by seldom-used Thad Ector.

It continued in the second inning. Evan Stone, another seldom-used freshman, started it with a single and Belk drove him in with his second double of the gap to the gap in right-center. Keven Madden was hit by a pitch before a sacrifice bunt went awry.

That didn’t matter though as Eyster lifted one high to right field that looked like a routine fly ball off the bat. It got into the wind blowing fiercely in that direction and landed on the grassy area just beyond the fence for a 3-run home run and a 7-0 lead. That ended the night for Holton.

Eyster wasn’t sure if he got enough of it.

“Not at first,” he said when asked if he thought it was going out. “I remembered how hard the wind was blowing out to right field earlier, so when I saw (the Vanderbilt right fielder) go to the wall, I was pretty sure it was gone.”

That was more than enough for Sanders. The big right-hander kept the Vanderbilt hitters off-balance and limited them to two runs on six hits in seven innings. Sanders threw 104 pitches and ended with 11 strikeouts with just two walks.

Sanders changed things up after allowing nine hits in a loss to Tennessee last week. He wore his pants around his ankles instead of his trademark look of his socks showing. He also cut his hair short.

“The situation was I gave up nine hits last week and that’s not what I want,” Sanders said. “I had to switch something up.”

Cade Austin pitched the final two innings and did not allow a run on three hits. He struck out three.

It was good the offensive explosion came early. Vanderbilt reliever Patrick Reilly slowed the Gamecocks considerably. In 5.2 innings, he allowed one run with 14 strikeouts and two walks. The only run he allowed came in the sixth inning when Belk, who had three hits, singled and ended up scoring on a wild pitch. South Carolina struck out a total of 16 times but collected 11 hits.

Seven of the nine USC starters collected at least one hit. Eyster had four RBIs and Belk led the way with three hits.

“Baseball is a crazy game. There are days you look great, there are days you look terrible. You have to know the truth is somewhere in between,” Kingston said.

This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 10:00 PM.