March 23, 2011

Box Score | Quotes

COLUMBIA, S.C. – For the second consecutive day, all nine South Carolina position starters had at least one hit and in addition, eight of the nine drove in at least one run as Carolina defeated Rhode Island 17-8 on Wednesday evening in non-conference baseball action at Carolina Stadium. The Gamecocks are 16-4 on the year while the loss drops Rhode Island to 9-8 for the season.

Gamecock reliever Jose Mata earned the win and is now 2-0 on the year. He allowed one run on two hits in four innings of relief. He struck out two and walked none. Rhode Island starter Brian Bodjiak suffered the loss and is 2-1 on the year. He faced only five batters and allowed two hits and three walks as well as five runs.

Carolina picked up where they left off from yesterday’s game, batting around in the first inning to score six times against the Rams in the first inning. Adam Matthews led off with a walk and scored on Peter Mooney’s double to the gap in right-center. Bradley Jr. followed with a two-run homer to right-center giving the Gamecocks a 3-0 lead. The homer was Bradley’s team-leading sixth of the season and his 200th career hit in a Gamecock uniform, becoming the 24th player in Carolina history with 200 or more career hits. Walks to Christian Walker and Adrian Morales followed that ended the evening for Rhode Island starter Brian Bodjiak. Brady Thomas greeted Rhode Island reliever Anthony Pisani with a two-run double to left-center that scored Walker. Robert Beary added a RBI base hit as well as the Gamecocks took a 6-0 lead.

Rhode Island came right back in the top half of the second and cut the score in half on the Gamecocks. Tom Coluombe walked followed by base hits by Ty Muller and Milan Adams. Dan Haverstick then walked with the bases loaded to score Colulombe for URI’s first run of the game. A fielding error by Gamecock reliever Jose Mata and a ground out would give Rhode Island two more runs as they cut the deficit to 6-3.

Carolina batted around for the second time in bottom of the second to score four more runs and take a 10-3 lead. Bradley and Walker each walked to open the frame. With two outs and runners on the corners, Beary laced a RBI double to left-center scoring Bradley. That was followed up by Evan Marzilli’s RBI bunt single. After a walk to Scott Wingo loaded the bases, Adam Matthews delivered a two-run single to left field that gave the Gamecocks a seven-run cushion. The Gamecocks extended the lead to 10 runs in the third inning with Brady Thomas driving in a run followed by a two-run homer by Beary, his third hit of the game.

Rhode Island scratched across a run in the top of the fifth inning. Jeff Cammans was hit by a pitch to start the inning and scored on Ty Muller’s two-out RBI double to right-center. South Carolina responded with a pair of runs in the bottom half to take a 15-4 lead. Adrian Morales hit his third home run of the season, a solo shot and Scott Wingo had a RBI single as the Gamecocks went ahead by double digits. That lead extended to 17-4 as Morales drove in a run with a RBI double and Walker scored on wild pitch. Rhode Island added four runs in the eighth and ninth innings.

South Carolina finished with 19 hits in the game. Beary tied a career-high with four hits and tallied a career-high four RBI and also scored three runs. Morales went 3-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBI. Mooney, Bradley Jr., Walker, Marzilli and Wingo all had two hits apiece. Matthews, Bradley Jr., Morales and Thomas drove in two runs apiece as well. Ty Muller was 2-for-3 and Tom Coulombe went 2-for-4 with two runs to lead Rhode Island.