Feb. 19, 2006
Columbia, S.C. – Three Gamecock pitchers combined on a three hit shutout and faced only one batter above the minimum Sunday in a 2-0 victory that gave South Carolina a sweep of the three game baseball series with Radford.
The win improved South Carolina’s season record to 5-1 while Radford fell to 0-3. Junior left-hander Forrest Beverly worked six innings and allowed all three Highlander hits in improving his record to 2-0. Radford starter Eric Evans (0-1) was also effective. He allowed six hits and one run in 6 2/3 innings but was charged with the loss.
Freshman right-hander Mike Cisco pitched two perfect innings and senior closer Shawn Valdes-Fauli retired three ninth inning batters to earn his second save of the season.
Beverly gave up singles to Alex Gregory and David Landman in the second and fourth innings but both were wiped out by double plays turned by the Gamecock infield of freshman shortstop James Darnell, senior second baseman Chris Brown and freshman first baseman Justin Smoak.
Radford’s only other base runner came on a sixth inning infield single by Nacion Moore and he was left on base. Gamecock pitchers walked none and struck out 10, six by Beverly and four by Cisco. The trio threw only 104 pitches in nine innings, 74 of them for strikes, never going three balls to any batter. Fifty of the 68 pitches by Beverly were strikes.
Both teams played errorless baseball, South Carolina’s fourth consecutive errorless outing in six games, and both turned two double plays. Game time was a fast one hour and 44 minutes.
It was the second shutout of the Radford series for the South Carolina pitching staff, lowering its earned run average to 1.29 in 54 innings.
South Carolina took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning on a leadoff double by Smoak, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly by Darnell that scored Smoak. Senior third baseman Neil Giesler hit his second home run of the season for the final Gamecock run in the eighth inning.
Smoak had a single to go with his double and Brown had two singles to account for half of South Carolina’s eight hits. The others were singles by Cheyne Hurst, Robbie Grinestaff and Ian Paxton and Giesler’s home run.
South Carolina’s next action is a three game series home next weekend with Duquesne at Sarge Frye Field.
