April 18, 2002

Columbia, SC –
Fresh off Wednesday’s nights 8-6 victory over first ranked Clemson, the seventh ranked South Carolina Baseball Team (29-8, 9-5) returns home for a weekend series with the LSU Tigers. First pitch it set for 7 p.m. at Sarge Frye Field with junior LHP Steven Bondurant (5-0, 2.31 ERA) on the mound for the Gamecocks. Sophomore LHP Lane Mestepey (7-2, 3.33 ERA) will take the hill for the Tigers of Louisiana State.

The Gamecocks own a five-game winning streak and have won four of five SEC series this year. South Carolina currently holds a 20-3 record at the Sarge including four of six games vs. SEC opponents. Entering this weekend’s series, Carolina will be challenging for its first series victory over the Tigers. LSU enters the contest with a 15-4-1 overall record over the Gamecocks.

South Carolina enters this weekend batting strong, after outscoring Vanderbilt last weekend 37-19 in four games. In the last five games South Carolina has accumulated at least 10 hits vs. the opponent. Yaron Peters currently is batting .407 for the Gamecocks and leads the SEC in slugging percentage with .796. Junior Drew Meyer is batting .387 with a team-leading 63 hits, and senior Steve Thomas enters with a .350 batting average and 17 doubles, second highest in the SEC.

Game time for Saturday’s game is 4 p.m. with the series finale on Sunday beginnat at 1:30 p.m.