Pitching hits a wall as South Carolina stumbles to 10-2 loss against Gardner-Webb
After winning the first three midweek games of the season, South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston credited his team’s success to improved pitching depth.
On Wednesday, the No. 24 Gamecocks’ pitching depth ran out, as they dropped a 10-2 contest to Gardner-Webb at Founders Park.
“Credit to Gardner-Webb,” Kingston said. “They played better than us in a lot of areas tonight. They deserved to win.”
Six pitchers took the mound for USC (10-3), setting a new season high with eight walks and tying the season high with 12 hits. Senior Gage Hinson was the only one to not either give up a run or allow an inherited runner to score.
“Just wasn’t good enough. Command wasn’t good enough, stuff wasn’t good enough. And Gardner-Webb made us pay,” Kingston said.
On offense, meanwhile, Carolina struggled to touch G-W starter Noah Davis, who turned in a quality outing of six innings, no earned runs and eight strikeouts. Kingston noted that the Gamecocks had mainly scouted him as a fastball and slider pitcher, but he added a cutter to his arsenal Wednesday that gave USC fits.
“He changed speeds, he was throwing a cutter we just didn’t have an answer for, kept us off-balance all night,” Kingston said.
The Gamecocks’ starter, junior Hayden Lehman, on the other hand, struggled from the very first pitch Wednesday, surrendering a walk sandwiched by two singles to make it 1-0 early.
The Bulldogs (7-2) added to their lead in the second with a walk, stolen base and single combined with a throwing error. Lehman was then pulled for freshman Dylan Harley, who has been the Gamecocks’ Saturday starter so far this season. However, he has struggled, especially with command, convincing Kingston to move him out of the rotation.
“He needs work. He needs to get better, and we need to find what the best role for him is,” Kingston said.
Harley’s troubles continued, as he gave up two more runs off an RBI single.
Gardner-Webb tagged USC for three more runs in the fourth, knocking Harley out of the game with a single and double, then roughing up sophomore Cam Tringali with a sacrifice fly, RBI single and RBI double.
The Gamecocks got its only offense of the day in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases, then getting a sacrifice fly from sophomore right fielder Andrew Eyster and an RBI single from sophomore first baseman Jordan Holladay.
However, Gardner-Webb padded its lead once more in the seventh inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, sophomore Parker Coyne had a wild pitch and passed ball to score two runs. He then walked two more batters and threw another wild pitch to allow another score.
Next: The Gamecocks play their final nonconference weekend series of the season, opening Friday against Valparaiso. Freshman Wesley Sweatt will get his first career start as Kingston shuffles his rotation. Junior Reid Morgan will move from Sunday to Saturday, and Sunday’s starter is TBA.
Softball: USC defeated Winthrop 3-0 on Wednesday. The Gamecocks (18-2) have won 15 games in a row and host Kentucky in a three-game home series that starts Friday at 6 p.m.
This story was originally published March 6, 2019 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Pitching hits a wall as South Carolina stumbles to 10-2 loss against Gardner-Webb."
