How South Carolina leaned on pitching staff to sweep Sacred Heart in opening series

South Carolina’s pitching staff turned in a strong season-opening effort, fueling a Gamecocks sweep of Sacred Heart and an 8-0 victory Sunday at Ray Tanner Field at Founders Park.

Left-handed sophomore Jake McCoy put an exclamation point on the weekend pitching effort with his no-hit performance over five innings Sunday. He joined fellow starting pitchers Dylan Eskew and Matthew Becker with nine strikeouts, and all three of them worked five innings in their starts. They combined to pitch 15 innings and with one earned run on four hits, 27 strikeouts and one walk.

Throw in the efforts of the bullpen, and the pitching staff allowed three runs on nine hits with 45 strikeouts and four walks.

“I couldn’t have dreamt of what we saw from those guys this weekend,” South Carolina coach Paul Mainieri said. “I shouldn’t say I was surprised. I’ve watched the work (pitching coach) Terry (Rooney) has done with these guys from the day he got on campus here, and it’s been magnificent. It was a great way to start the season.”

Pitching for a bigger cause

McCoy is doing something this season that will benefit Purple Heart Homes, an organization that provides safe, barrier-free housing solutions and assistance for service-connected disabled and aging veterans.

The Gamecocks donned military-colored camouflage hats and honored a military veteran on the field, something they plan on doing for every Sunday home game this season. McCoy has a fond appreciation for the military and started his campaign off well. He will donate $23 for every strikeout he records this season. That is his jersey number, and he already has $207 going to the cause after his first outing.

McCoy was consistently hitting 90-91 mph with his fastball and mixed in his other pitches well.

“I thought it was a good way to give back and just excited to see where it goes from here,” McCoy said.

Offense making the most of opportunities

The Gamecocks (3-0) can almost be thankful for the chances Sacred Heart gave them. There will not be many weekends moving forward where South Carolina will score more runs than they had hits, but it happened against the Pioneers.

In the three-game sweep, the Gamecocks scored 27 runs but collected just 22 hits. On Sunday, they finished with six hits and scored eight runs. They scored the first two runs on a Nathan Hall sacrifice fly in the third inning that drove in Will Tippett and when Kennedy Jones got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the fifth.

South Carolina broke things open in the sixth inning. Blake Jackson doubled to score Tippett before the former Lexington High and Clemson transfer hit his first home run as a Gamecock, a three-run blast that made it 6-0. Ethan Petry delivered an RBI triple in the eighth before Kennedy Jones added an RBI single.

“Growing up here, I started out being a Gamecocks fan and coming to the games with my mom and dad,” Hall said. “I credit my teammates and coaches for giving me all the confidence to get it done in a big spot in the game.”

Mainieri knew the Gamecocks would have to be able to manufacture runs and the opening weekend was promising when they hit just two home runs. Sacred Heart helped by issuing 21 walks and committing eight errors on the weekend.

“It took us a while to get going today. We’re going to need to hit better than we did today through the season,” Mainieri said. “We had a lot of pitches to hit, and we took a lot of strikes. I wasn’t overly happy with the way we swung the bats today, quite frankly.”

Defense shines

While the pitching staff might have taken the headlines for the weekend, the defense was stellar as well.

The only error of the weekend came on Sunday when infielder Nolan Nawrocki misplayed a hard-hit ball that he couldn’t make a play on. There weren’t many “SportsCenter Top 10 plays,” but they made the routine plays when it mattered.

The pitching staff will not be as dominant every time out, so the defense will have to be solid.

Mainieri thought coming into the season that his pitching staff was more of a pitch-to-contact type of staff. If that happens, making the routine play will be key.

USC baseball upcoming schedule

• Tuesday at Winthrop, 4 p.m. (ESPN+)
• Wednesday vs. Queens, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
• Friday vs. Milwaukee, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
• Saturday vs. Milwaukee, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
• Sunday vs. Milwaukee, 1:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)

This story was originally published February 16, 2025 at 3:13 PM.