Baseball Sweeps No. 1 Texas in Sunday Doubleheader

COLUMBIA – The University of South Carolina baseball team swept a doubleheader against No. 1 Texas, winning the opener, 4-2, before pounding out 14 hits in a 9-4 win in the nightcap on Sunday afternoon (March 13) at Founders Park.
 
The Gamecocks pitching staff held Texas to just nine hits in the two wins. Will Sanders and Michael Braswell combined for the game one win. Sanders struck out six, allowing four hits and two runs in six innings. Braswell earned his third save of the year with a scoreless seventh. In the nightcap, freshman Matthew Becker allowed just one hit in six innings of work, striking out 11 in his first career start, picking up his first win as a Gamecock.
 
Carolina plated a pair of runs in the fourth inning of game one in taking a 3-1 lead. Kevin Madden and Carson Hornung each had sacrifice flies in the inning. Texas got one back in the fifth, but Braylen Wimmer’s single scored Brandt Belk in the bottom half of the fifth. Wimmer was 3-for-3 in the opener, while Belk added a pair of hits and two runs scored.
 
The Gamecocks had 14 singles in the second game, as five different Carolina hitters had two hits in the win. Michael Braswell, Andrew Eyster and Madden each drove in a pair.

POSTGAME NOTES

• Michael Braswell extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a hit in each of the two games on Sunday.
• The 14 hits in game two are a season high.
• Carolina hit .344 on the weekend, with Belk going 8-for-12 with six runs and three extra-base hits in the three games.
• Carolina wins its first series over a top-ranked team since April 15-17, 2011, when the Gamecocks took 2-of-3 games over Vanderbilt.
• Carolina picked up its first two wins over Texas in program history.

UP NEXT
Carolina wraps up its five-game homestand on Tuesday night (March 15) against Gardner-Webb. First pitch is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be on SEC Network Plus.