Gamecocks open home SEC series with loss to Ole Miss
Dylan DeLucia’s Ole Miss career has included all of 33 games. He’s appeared in 10 of those contests to mixed results. Only one of those outings was a start.
Thursday, though, DeLucia did his best ace impression, slicing and dicing the hometown Gamecocks over 7.2 innings as Ole Miss (21-12, 5-8 SEC) downed South Carolina (16-17, 4-9 SEC) 9-1 win at Founders Park.
“Their guy (DeLucia) did a really nice job keeping us off balance,” USC head coach Mark Kingston said postgame. “He worked that fastball 90 to 92, sunk it and threw a slider at anytime.”
DeLucia’s dynamism marked an uncharacteristically stifling effort by a Rebels pitching staff that entered the weekend ranked ninth in the SEC in opposing batting average and earned run average.
His 7.2 innings pitched marked the lengthiest outing of his brief time in Oxford and the longest start of any Ole Miss pitcher this year. He finished the evening ringing up four Gamecocks and allowing just six hits in only his second start of the season.
“DeLucia just did a really nice job of keeping us off-balance,” Kingston continued. “And we just had no answers for him tonight.”
South Carolina turned to freshman Aidan Hunter in Thursday night’s start, a move prompted by Matthew Becker’s two innings of work on Tuesday against North Florida.
Hunter was effective early despite his pitch count climbing to 51 over the first two frames. He rolled through the first inning, striking out Tim Elko and Kevin Graham after surrendering a walk to No. 2 batter Jacob Gonzalez.
Ole Miss promptly jumped on a mistake pitch in the second inning when TJ McCants belted Hunter’s delivery just shy of the wrought-iron fence in right field for a two-run homer.
Hunter still managed to strand a trio of Rebel runners when he forced Elko into a fielder’s choice at third to end the frame.
The Summerville product’s night unraveled in earnest when Reagan Burford blasted a three-run homer into the South Carolina bullpen in right-center field. Hunter capped his three innings pitched with strikeouts of Hayden Dunhurst and Peyton Chatagnier to end the third inning.
“Truthfully, he’s (Hunter) not ready for that,” Kingston conceded. “But I give him credit, because he’s given it everything he has and we have his back. But he’s a freshman right now that you’re asking to pitch on a (Game 1) in the SEC and that’s not what he was brought here to do.”
Struggling senior reliever John Gilreath later settled into a rhythm that he’s lacked for the bulk of the season over his five innings of relief behind Hunter. Gilreath allowed just two hits and two runs while striking out five in the second-longest outing of his USC career.
“He looked relaxed tonight,” Kingston said. “I think when he came in the game it was 7-0, so I think it allowed him to relax and just actually trust his stuff. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more than from John.”
South Carolina scored its lone run came in the eighth inning when Andrew Eyster hit a hard grounder to the left side with the bases loaded to bring home Matt Hogan on a fielder’s choice and a throwing error by Chatagnier.
That USC dropped Game 1 of its three-game set has become a startling standard over the course of the 2022 season. South Carolina is now 1-4 in the opening game of a series in SEC play, the lone win coming at Missouri two weeks ago.
Kingston’s squad has gone on to win series over Vanderbilt and Texas after dropping Game 1. It’ll require rekindling that magic on Friday when Noah Hall takes the mound for South Carolina as the Gamecocks cling to their increasingly slim postseason hopes.
“That’s the message after the game is it’s happened many times this year,” Kingston said of staging a series comeback on Friday and Saturday. “We’ve had the opportunity to bounce back many, many times and that has to be the mindset.”
South Carolina baseball schedule
- Friday: vs. Ole Miss, 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Saturday: vs. Ole Miss, 1 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 10:11 PM.
