April 15, 2014

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COLUMBIA, S.C. – Charleston Southern raced out to a four-run lead in the first five innings and held off a late Gamecock rally to defeat sixth ranked South Carolina 4-1 on Tuesday evening in non-conference action at Carolina Stadium. Charleston Southern improves to 19-20 with the Gamecocks dropping to 28-8 for the year.

Denis Buckley earned the win in relief for Charleston Southern to improve to 2-0 on the year. Buckley allowed just one run on six hits in 6.2 innings with a walk and six strikeouts. Reliever Austin Weekley struck out the lone batter he faced in the ninth inning for his seventh save of the year. South Carolina starter Evan Beal suffered the loss and is now 0-1 on the year. The junior right-hander worked 2.1 innings, giving up three runs on five hits while striking out one batter. Reed Scott allowed one run on four hits and struck out two batters in four innings of relief while Josh Reagan worked 2.2 scoreless innings, allowing three hits and struck on one batter.

Charleston Southern broke ahead 1-0 in the first inning. After a pair of singles off the bats of Bobby Ison and Andrew Widell, Alex Tomasovich drove in Ison with a sacrifice fly to right field.

The Buccaneers added to their lead with two more runs in the top of third. Ison led off with a base hit, his second of night, and advanced to second on Widell’s sacrifice bunt. Tomasovich tallied his second RBI of the game as he brought home Ison with a single to center. Tomasovich moved to second on Chase Shelton’s groundout and then scored on Zack Hagaman’s RBI single through the right side.

A one-out double and back-to-back base hits in the fifth inning plated another run for the Buccaneers, giving them a 4-0 lead.

The Gamecocks attempted a rally in the bottom of the ninth, but came up short, scoring only one run. A two-out walk to Patrick Harrington and a single through the right side from DC Arendas put a runner in scoring position for Jordan Gore, who knocked a 0-2 pitch up the middle allowing Harrington to come home. The rally would end there however, as Weekley entered the game as he retired Tanner English with a strikeout swinging to end the contest.

Charleston Southern finished with 12 hits with Ison 3-for-5 with two runs and Widell, Tomasovich, Shelton and Sam Remick all tallying two hits apiece. South Carolina had six hits with Elliott Caldwell 2-for-4 at the plate.

“Congratulations to Charleston Southern, they were obviously the better team of the night,” said South Carolina head coach Chad Holbrook. “They out competed, out hustled, out scrapped and out did us in just about everything tonight. I’m happy for [Charleston Southern head coach] Stuart Lake, he’s a great guy and has been a part of the program for a long time. I know this was a meaningful game and win for him, so, hats off to him. Bobby Ison was the best player out there on the field tonight, without a doubt. The kid has struck out three times in about 160 at bats and that tells you all you need to know about the type of kid he is, he competes and I’d like to have him in our lineup. We got our tails kicked tonight, that’s the bottom line.”

South Carolina is back in action Wednesday as they travel to Charleston, S.C. to take on The Citadel. First pitch is 7 p.m. with the game available on the Gamecock IMG Network including flagship station, 107.5 FM, “The Game.”