May 11, 2007
Knoxville, Tenn. – Andrew Crisp went 3-for-4 with a home run and three RBI and Travis Jones and Phil Disher each added home runs as well as South Carolina defeated Tennessee 7-1 on Friday evening in the opener of a three-game SEC series. Carolina improves to 37-14 and 14-11 in the SEC while the loss drops the Volunteers to 29-21 and 10-13 on the year.
South Carolina hit three home runs in the game to surpass the team’s season total from last year (92). The Gamecocks have 93 this season and own a current streak of 11 consecutive games with a homer. Along with Crisp’s three hits, Steven Reinhold and Travis Jones added two apiece.
Carolina relief pitcher Jeff Jeffords pitched 4.1 hitless innings of relief to pick up the win. He is now 5-1 on the year. Jeffords struck out six batters to earn the win and allowed just four walks. His six strikeouts tied his season-high total. Tennessee starting pitcher James Adkins suffered the loss and is now 5-7 on the year. Adkins worked seven innings and allowed five runs, four earned, on six hits with 11 strikeouts and four walks allowed.
Crisp put the Gamecocks ahead 2-0 in the fourth inning with a two-run homer off Adkins. After Trent Kline drew a one-out walk, Crisp fought off several two strike pitches before launching his fifth home run of the year over the left field wall.
The Volunteers cut into the Carolina lead in the bottom of the fifth inning with a run against South Carolina starting pitcher Arik Hempy. Cody Brown and Danny Lima each walked to start off the frame and were sacrifice to second and third respectively by Andy Simunic. Tennessee then scored its first run of the game on Julio Borbon’s RBI single to right field. On the play, Lima tried to score the tying run from second base but Crisp was able to throw him out at the plate to preserve a Gamecock lead. Carolina then took out Hempy with Borbon on second base and brought in Jeffords, who got J.P. Arcencibia to ground out to shortstop to end the inning. Hempy was solid on the mound in 4.2 innings of work allowing one run on three hits with five strikeouts and four allowed.
Crisp continued his stellar hitting in the sixth inning as the Gamecocks got the run back in the top of the sixth inning. Carolina was able to take advantage of a Volunteer error as Phil Disher reached base on a dropped pop up by second baseman Tony Delmonico. After Disher was sacrificed to second base, he would score on Crisp’s RBI single down the left field line for his third RBI of the night and a 3-1 Carolina lead. South Carolina went up by four runs in the top of the seventh inning. After Reinhold reached base on a strikeout-wild pitch issued by Adkins, Jones extended the Carolina lead to 5-1with a two-run homer to left field, for his 16th of the year. Jones’ homer tied him for the team lead with James Darnell and Justin Smoak and was his 12th of the season in SEC games.
Carolina added single runs in the eighth and ninth innings off of Tennessee reliever Danny Wiltz. Disher greeted him to lead off the eighth inning with his 11th homer of the year to left field and James Darnell added a RBI base hit to score Steven Reinhold to close the scoring for the Gamecocks.
Friday night’s game was delayed for 73 minutes early in the first inning due to rain in the Knoxville area.
Both teams will play game two of the series on Saturday at 7 pm ET with the game televised on CSS-TV and also live on the Gamecock Radio Network. Carolina will send junior RHP Harris Honeycutt to the hill with the Volunteers countering freshman LHP Nick Hernandez.
