Cortes' Walk-Off Lifts Baseball to Series Win over Missouri
May 13, 2018
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Sophomore Carlos Cortes broke a scoreless pitching duel with a solo home run on the first pitch in the bottom of the ninth as the University of South Carolina baseball team came away with a 1-0 walk-off win over Missouri Sunday afternoon (May 13) at Founders Park. South Carolina won its fourth straight SEC series with the win and improved to 15-12 in conference play.
The story of the game was the back-and-forth between Gamecock sophomore Cody Morris and Missouri’s Tyler LaPlante on the mound. Morris tied a career high with 10 strikeouts while setting a career high with seven innings pitched. He allowed three hits with four walks and no runs. LaPlante was just as good, striking out eight and allowing five hits and a run with a walk in eight-plus innings of work.
Cortes not only ended the game with his solo blast, he saved a run in the bottom of the first. Brian Sharp walked to open the game. He went to second on a wild pitch. With two outs, Alex Samples singled to right. Sharp tried to score but Cortes threw him out from right field, which is his seventh outfield assist of the season. Missouri then failed to put a runner in scoring position until the ninth.
Carolina had three doubles in the first four innings as Justin Row, Noah Campbell and Jonah Bride all had two-baggers, but LaPlante shut down every threat.
Eddy Demurias earned the win in relief, improving to 5-0 on the season. He struck out one in two innings of relief.
GAMECHANGER
Cody Morris struck out 10 and did not allow a run in seven innings of work, but Carlos Cortes threw out Brian Sharp trying to score in the first inning, allowing for the walk-off heroics in the ninth.
KEY STAT
Carolina has now won four straight series in the SEC for the first time since the 2012 season.
NOTABLE
- This is Carolina’s first 1-0 win since March 9, 2014, when the Gamecocks defeated Brown by the 1-0 score.
- Cody Morris now has three 10-strikeout games on the season. He did the trick March 17 against Florid and April 7 against Kentucky.
- This is Carolina’s second walk-off win of the year. TJ Hopkins‘ sacrifice fly gave Carolina a 3-2 win over Clemson on March 2.
- Hunter Taylor threw out two more baserunners trying to steal in today’s win. Taylor has done that 14 times this season.
- Carolina goes into the final week of the SEC regular season with a 15-12 record. That is fifth overall in the league. The Gamecocks trail Ole Miss and Georgia by one games and lead LSU by one game. South Carolina has tiebreakers over Ole Miss and LSU and drops a tiebreaker to Georgia.
UP NEXT
South Carolina will close out the regular season home schedule this Tuesday (May 15) against USC Upstate. First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m.
