March 10, 2006
Columbia, S.C. – Ninth ranked South Carolina used 10 walks, two balks, one hit batter by Quinnipiac University pitchers and home runs by Chris Brown and freshman Andrew Crisp Friday night to defeat the Bobcats 10-4 in the first of a three game college baseball series.
The second game is scheduled for 4 p.m., Saturday at Sarge Frye Field.
Arik Hempy, 1-1, pitched 5 2/3 innings to earn the win. He allowed four hits, all four Bobcat runs, struck out nine and walked two. Andrew Cruse pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing one infield hit and one walk. He struck out three. Freshman Will Atwood retired Quinnipiac in order in the ninth inning with one strikeout.
Chris Wakefield, 0-1, the first of three Bobcat pitchers, took the loss in Quinnipiac’s season opener. South Carolina improved its season record to 11-2.
Robbie Grinestaff had three of South Carolina’s eight hits, including a double. He scored two runs and drove in one. Neil Giesler had two hits, scored three runs and drove in one. Giesler had his seventh multi-hit game and is batting .512 on the season.
Brown hit his first home run of the season with the bases empty in the fifth inning and Crisp hit a two run homer, the first of his career, in the seventh inning.
Three of Quinnipiac’s four runs came on back to back fourth inning home runs by Tim Binkoski and Kevin Macilvane, the first homers of the season off South Carolina pitchers after 112 innings.
Binkoski had three runs batted in. His ground out scored Ryan Rizzo in the first inning to give the Bobcats a short lived 1-0 lead without a hit. A walk, wild pitch and two ground outs scored the run. In the fourth inning Ricky Coppola singled for the first hit allowed by Hempy. Binkoski and Macilvane followed with home runs.
After Quinnipiac scored in the top of the first South Carolina tallied three times on only two hits in the bottom of the inning to take the lead for good. A hit batter, two walks, the first of two balks by Wakefield and the first of his five wild pitches contributed to the Gamecock inning.
The Gamecocks scored two runs each in the third, fourth and seventh innings and one run in the fifth.
