South Carolina baseball keeps scoring at historic level with win over Queens
Another midweek game.
Another blowout result.
After consistently struggling in these settings last season, South Carolina’s baseball team followed up a good Tuesday with a good Wednesday at Founders Park, blitzing Queens University 12-0 to stay undefeated early in the 2023 season.
First baseman Gavin Casas had a two-run homer, outfielder Caleb Denny drove in five runs and right-hander James Hicks pitched five scoreless innings with five strikeouts as the No. 23 Gamecocks moved to 5-0 ahead of this weekend’s three-game home series against Penn.
USC was a middling 7-5 in midweek games last year, a stretch that featured unsightly losses to The Citadel, Presbyterian College and USC Upstate and contributed to the Gamecocks missing their first NCAA tournament since 1996.
Through two midweek games in 2023, the Gamecocks have blitzed their opponents without as much as blinking while some other ranked SEC squads have not. On Tuesday, No. 10 Vanderbilt lost at home to Central Arkansas, and No. 9 Arkansas needed a late rally to beat Grambling.
South Carolina, meanwhile, didn’t blink in routing Winthrop 19-3 on Tuesday and Queens 12-0 on Wednesday as its first big test — next weekend’s rivalry series with Clemson — looms.
Consider it another small sign of the progress South Carolina is making early in coach Mark Kingston’s sixth season, which the team has embraced as a chance to show fans “what we really are” after an injury- and inconsistency-marred 2022 campaign.
USC entered Wednesday having scored double-digit runs in four straight games, which hadn’t been done since 2006 and hadn’t been done to start a season since 1987.
Thanks to a six-run flurry in the bottom of the seventh inning, that double-digit run streak is now five games long — something South Carolina hasn’t done since March 1997.
“These guys know that we have a lot of good baseball players on our team right now,” Kingston said postgame. “They know that they play hard and they play together. And, you know, the results are showing.”
Early offense
The Gamecocks didn’t have much trouble getting over 10 runs against Queens (0-4), a program playing its first season of Division I baseball after years at the Division II level.
In the first baseball meeting between South Carolina and Queens, a Charlotte-based school competing in the ASUN, the Gamecocks scored two runs apiece in the bottom of the first, second and third innings to run off Royals starter Jeffery Maidhof.
That stretch included first baseman Casas’ two-run home run in the bottom of the third inning, which the Vanderbilt transfer drove deep into left field to score himself and catcher Talmadge LeCroy.
“The count was 2-1 and I knew there was a runner on first — they had just hit Talmadge — and I knew they wanted me to ground out into a double play,” Casas said. “So I was kind of expecting a change-up and I got the change up, and I was able to stay back on it and drive it the other way.”
Casas’ homer was South Carolina’s 20th of the season — a notable uptick for a team that ranked last among 14 SEC teams with 58 home runs last year (and didn’t get to No. 20 until the 26th game of the season). Heading into the Queens game, USC’s 19 home runs through four games ranked No. 1 nationally.
The Gamecocks also got some early offense from outfielder Denny, whose ground-rule double to right field put his team up 4-0 in the bottom of the second inning after two first-inning scores.
Later, in the bottom of the seventh, Denny hit another double to drive in infielder Braylen Wimmer and outfielder Dylan Brewer. Those accounted for two of South Carolina’s crowd-pleasing six runs in the seventh inning after dry spell with no scoring in the fourth, fifth or sixth.
Pitchers stand out
On the other side of the mound, USC’s pitching was once again a bright spot. The Gamecocks debuted true freshman Eli Jerzembeck against Winthrop (to the delight of the double-digit MLB scouts in attendance) and redshirt junior righty Hicks against Queens.
Hicks, who returned to South Carolina after being selected in the 15th round of the 2022 MLB Draft, was making his first start since undergoing Tommy John surgery last March and undergoing an extensive recovery process.
Hicks’ injury limited the Crowder (Mo.) College transfer to a mere two games and 4.1 innings in his first season as a Gamecock; he surpassed that innings total on Wednesday and pitched an efficient five innings of shutout ball in front of an announced crowd of 5,994.
Hicks, who’d pitched two scoreless innings with two strikeouts against UMass Lowell last Friday, struck out five of the 18 batters he faced and threw strikes on 39 of 55 pitches. And his miscuses — two walks issued, two hits allowed — didn’t amount to much, as Queens left three runners on base during Hicks’ stint on the mound.
“These past few weeks that I’ve pitched have been everything that I’ve been thinking about this whole journey,” Hicks said. “It’s just made everything worth it: coming out here and pitching well. Hope to keep it going, stay on track and stay healthy.”
Bullpen participants Matthew Becker (2.0 innings, two strikeouts), Austin Williamson (1.0 innings, one strikeout) and Dylan Eskew (1.0 innings) picked up where Hicks left off over the final four innings to give USC its first shutout of the season (while allowing just two hits).
The Gamecocks only had one winning streak of four-plus games in 2022, but Wednesday’s decisive win promptly pushed them past that mark for the first time this year. And with another steady midweek win behind them, they’re hoping it isn’t the last.
Next four USC baseball games
Friday: vs. Penn, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
Saturday: vs Penn, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
Sunday: vs. Penn, 1:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
Tuesday: vs. North Carolina A&T, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 6:45 PM.
