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Austin Brinling on finding a home at South Carolina: 'I wanted to be a part of that'

imageby:Jack Veltri•01/30/24•

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Austin Brinling (Katie Dugan/GamecockCentral)

Throughout Austin Brinling’s college career, he’s never really been able to find a place to call “home.”

He walked on at Florida in 2020. Then COVID-19 happened, which derailed any chance of him playing that year.

“At that point, they didn’t really want me,” Brinling told GamecockCentral’s Jack Veltri in a Garnet Trust exclusive interview. “All the seniors get a year back and they’re bringing another class in. I was a walk-on so it didn’t work out. That’s kind of the words they used. There was no bad blood, I wasn’t really mad at the situation. I understood the situation, I just had to do my own thing and went and played junior college.”

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As a result, Brinling’s path went from hopeful to questionable. After leaving Florida, he joined Daytona State to get a fresh start and prove he could be a valuable player. He stuck around for two years and did well enough to garner some attention from North Florida.

“Coming out of junior college, I didn’t really have anywhere to go,” Bringing said. “(North Florida) kind of just gave me an opportunity to play and I took full advantage of it and it paid off.”

In one season with North Florida, Brinling had a breakout year. He slashed .386/.500/.540 with 78 hits and 31 RBI in 202 at-bats.

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In the midst of his time here, he found himself drawn to another team, one he had zero connection to. But through watching South Carolina’s breakout stretch during the middle of the 2023 season, he loved everything he saw on television.

“Throughout the year, I was watching a lot of South Carolina ball actually,” Brinling said. And I just really liked the way they play. I mean, it was a very fun and energetic team to watch. It was a team that you wanted to root for.”

Soon after Brinling’s season with North Florida came to an end, South Carolina came calling. Almost immediately, he knew this is where he wanted to go and try to find a home.

“When they reached out to me, it was an instant interest,” he said. “I wanted to be a part of that. And I wanted to potentially go and play in a College World Series one day. I felt like this was my best chance of doing that.”

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Brinling quickly became the first of many to transfer to South Carolina. Now heading into the 2024 season, he’s looking to be a guy that can just help his new team win.

“I want to be the guy who scores a lot of runs and gets on base and kind of produces in that form,” Brinling said. I’m not going to hit a bunch of homers or extra base hits. But I’m definitely going to help the bigger guys that are able to do that and get their runs and fame from that. I know that’s my role in this game.”

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