Late Season Surge Shows True Character of Gamecock Baseball

May 31, 2018

With 56 games allowed during college baseball’s regular season, there will always be ups and downs. There were some early “downs” for first year head coach Mark Kingston’s Gamecocks in 2018, but the team rallied to become one of the SEC’s hottest teams down the stretch, and now they’re headed to Greenville, N.C., to begin NCAA Tournament play on Friday.

“Coach Kingston told us in the preseason that there is no such thing as rebuilding,” said senior third baseman Jonah Bride. “When we were really starting to struggle, it was tough. We were embarrassed, but we got it turned around.”

South Carolina opened SEC play with a 1-5 league mark. Injuries to several key starters didn’t help as the Gamecocks struggled to a 20-17 record through mid-March, and there was work to be done just to qualify for the SEC Tournament. The team didn’t panic, however.

“I’m very proud,” Kingston said. “The worst thing you can say about a team is they might not fight when they get down. You can’t say that about this team. You won’t say that about this program. We were at a fork in the road at 20-17, and this program responded the way our fans, the way our administration, the way (Athletics Director and former head coach) Ray Tanner wants this team to respond. We got really good; really quickly. So, I’m real proud of that fact.

“When you have a senior class that can steady the ship like we did, they’ll be remembered for that. They’ll be remembered for going out the right way. One of the messages to that group was that you don’t want your senior year to go like this and know that you might have missed the tournament three out of four years. I think they took that very seriously. They can be remembered as that group that helped turn the tide and get this team back in the NCAA Tournament, where they belong.”

A line in the sand seemed to have been drawn after dropping a midweek game to Presbyterian on April 17. The Gamecocks would win eight of their next nine games and closed out the final leg of the regular season by winning five straight SEC series to post a 32-22 marking heading into the conference tournament. Not only did they make the tournament, but they finished fifth in the league standings.

“It was a wake-up call,” Bride said. “We didn’t want that to happen anymore.”

“Coach talked with us after the (Presbyterian) game, and he told us we had a decision to make,” said senior infielder Madison Stokes. “We can either accept this or make a difference.”

Actions speak louder than words, and the Gamecocks started to make noise.

“I think we lost focus,” said senior first baseman Matt Williams. “I don’t know if it was one thing, but we really woke up and locked in after that (Presbyterian) loss. Nothing against PC, but we didn’t want to get beat by them, especially at home. That hit us deep. After that, we tried to focus on every rep in the weight room, and tried to focus on every pitch out here on the field.”

“When guys come to this program, they know they’re coming here to try to win the next national championship,” Kingston said. “We were at a point in the season where it looked like it could be a long shot. You do need to remind them of that sometimes, and that maybe we’re not doing enough, and maybe you need to focus more. Whatever the case may be, when you’re struggling as a program, everybody needs to make sure they look in the mirror and that everybody is doing everything possible to try to help the program. We’ve had that along the way, and obviously guys did what they needed to do because here we are.”

“We got together after the Presbyterian game and basically said, ‘do we want to be this team or do we want to be a team that is playing in the postseason?'” said senior catcher Hunter Taylor. “After that it was lights out. Coach gave us a good speech after the game. We all knew what it meant, and since then I never once thought we were going to lose a game since that day.”

The history here is special. That’s a reason why a lot of people want to come here to play.

Jonah Bride

Those weren’t just empty words as the Gamecocks would prove over their next five weeks, with a couple of key moments that helped build the momentum and show the true character of the team.

“For me it was the LSU game on Sunday because we took the first two from them, and that gave us confidence,” said junior infielder LT Tolbert. “In the Sunday game we got down 6-0, but in the dugout, we still felt like we were going to win the game. I think that really got our confidence going.”

“We really started believing we had it going after that Vanderbilt series on the road,” Williams said. “We were down 7-0 in the first game and came back and won (8-7) and then we won that series. I think a lot of guys realized that we can do this.”

“In that Vanderbilt game, there was not one moment where I thought we were going to lose,” Taylor added. “They got on us quick. After that, I knew we were hot.”

Whether it’s the mural behind the centerfield wall at Founders Park, the College World Series appearances on the scoreboard, or the large photographs and championship trophies the student-athletes pass each time they walk through the lobby on the way to the locker room, the Gamecocks are reminded of the program’s history every day, and they don’t take it lightly.

“The history here is special,” Bride said. “That’s a reason why a lot of people want to come here to play. For us to be able to build on that and try to become postseason legends, that means a lot. We want to leave a mark on this program for the people that have already been here and left their mark, and also for the people that come in behind us. Those five SEC series at the end of the year, and really every SEC game we’ve played, we’ve been in all of them. That has us battle-tested as we go into the regional.”

“I wasn’t totally satisfied about just getting to regionals because I wanted to host,” Tolbert said. “I wanted to play in front of these fans again, but being back in the playoffs is really exciting.”

“Getting back to the postseason means everything,” Williams said. “When we made it to Supers a couple of years ago, we already thought we were in Omaha. We were so close, we didn’t really get to enjoy the moment. I think we’ll take a different approach where we take it one game at a time and live in the moment.”

“This is why we came here,” Taylor added. “We came here to win in Omaha. That’s something that we’re going for. It’s a big relief that we’re in, which is the first step. Now we can just go play and win.”

South Carolina begins play in the NCAA Regional hosted by East Carolina in Greenville, N.C., on Friday at 2 p.m. against Ohio State.