April 26, 2003
Oxford, Miss. – David Marchbanks won his 10th game, Brian Buscher and Bryan Triplett had four hits and Triplett and Kevin Melillo drove in four runs each Saturday and South Carolina defeated Mississippi 13-2 to even a Southeastern Conference baseball series at one game apiece.
The rubber game is scheduled for 1:30 p.m., CDT, Sunday at Swayze Field. South Carolina improved its overall record to 28-16, 10-10 in the SEC. The Gamecocks hung on to first place by a slim margin in the SEC Eastern Division standings over Florida and Vanderbilt. Ole Miss dropped to 26-18, 11-9 in the SEC West.
Although reached for 12 hits in eight innings of work, Marchbanks gave up single runs in the first two innings and then shut the Rebels out over the next six innings to improve his season record to 10-2 and his career mark to 26-7, tied for ninth on the all time win list. Cliff Donald pitched the ninth inning for the Gamecocks and retired the Rebels in order.
Mark Holliman, the first of three Mississippi pitchers, took the loss to drop his record to 3-4. The Gamecocks rocked Holliman for four hits and four first inning runs with the big blow a three run home run by Melillo, his seventh of the season.
Triplett hit a two run homer in the third inning and drove in two more with a single in the fourth. He had two other hits for his second four hit game of the season. Buscher had a double and three singles, driving in two runs, and boosted his team leading batting average to .397.
South Carolina, which had 16 hits in a 6-5 loss in the Friday night game, pounded out 17 hits Saturday as every Gamecock in the batting order had at least one hit except for left fielder Michael Campbell. He had three hits in the Friday game.
Justin Harris contributed three hits to the Gamecock attack and Landon Powell had two. South Carolina scored four runs in the first and fourth innings, two in the third and seventh, and added one in the ninth.
Marchbanks did not walk a batter, going to a three ball count only three times and was aided by an errorless defense that turned two double plays. Marchbanks struck out six and hit one batter. He has walked only nine and has struck out 69 this season in 89 innings. His earned run average is 2.22.
Chad Sterbens and Matt Tolbert had three hits apiece to account for half the Mississippi total. Seth Smith had two hits. Smith, Tolbert and Charlie Babineaux had doubles and Tolbert had a triple for the Rebels.
