April 3, 2003
Baton Rouge, La. – The South Carolina baseball team opens a seven-game road swing on Friday night with a three-game series vs. LSU at Alex Box Stadium. First pitch on Friday night is set for 7:30 p.m. ET. Ranked as high as 20th in the nation, Carolina enters the weekend with a 19-10 record and tied for second place in the SEC Eastern Division with a 4-5 conference record. LSU is 19-9-1 on the year and second in the SEC Western Division with a 7-1-1 conference record.
Senior LHP Steven Bondurant (3-1, 3.56 ERA) is scheduled to start for Carolina on Friday evening with junior LHP David Marchbanks (5-2, 2.18 ERA) slated for Saturday. Sunday’s starter is to be announced. Fresh off his third career complete game and first career shutout, Bondurant enters Friday’s game with a 2-1 conference record and a 0.83 ERA in SEC games. Marchbanks earned his first SEC win of the year last Sunday as Carolina defeated Vanderbilt 8-3. Marchbanks went the distance and pitched his first career complete game.
The Tigers of LSU come into this weekend matchup with the second best conference record in the SEC and a national ranking as high as 10th (Collegiate Baseball). Freshman RHP Justin Meier (3-0, 1.50 ERA) gets the start on Friday, senior RHP Bo Petit (5-0, 2.97 ERA) gets the nod on Saturday and junior RHP Nate Bumstead (3-1, 5.46 ERA) closes the weekend out for the Bayou Bengals. LSU has won all three SEC series played this year vs. Florida, at Georgia and at Alabama. The last time LSU lost a series is when the Gamecocks took two of three from the Tigers in Columbia in 2002. The series victory by Carolina was the first by the Gamecocks vs. the Tigers. Carolina also won two of three games the teams played in last year’s SEC Tournament. The Gamecocks won twice on Saturday of the SEC Tournament vs. LSU to advance to the championship game. LSU holds a 17-8-1 lead in the series.
After three games in Baton Rouge, South Carolina travels to Clemson Wednesday night for the fourth game in the SC-Clemson series. The Gamecocks then go to Gainesville, Fla. April 11-13 for three games with SEC East rival Florida. The next home game is April 16 against Wofford with the next home series vs. SEC leader Mississippi State (April 18-20).
Saturday’s game will be televised by SEC-TV with Dave Neal and Larry Conley calling the action on Fox Sports Net Southwest, Fox Sports Net South and Sunshine Network while Sunday’s game will be available in Louisiana on the Louisiana Sports Network (cable channel 10 in Baton Rouge) and in other SEC markets on Comcast Sports Southeast. Saturday’s first pitch is set for 4 p.m. ET. Sunday’s game will be a 2 p.m. ET first pitch. Audio broadcast and live stats will be availible at USCSPORTS.COM.
