Jack Mahoney's dominant outing powers South Carolina to series-evening win

Jack Mahoney found himself in a pickle. The South Carolina right-hander, who was electric through the first six innings, had just given up two hits and Arkansas was bringing the tying run to the plate. 

Justin Parker strolled to the mound for a quick visit but didn’t bring the hook with him. South Carolina let Mahoney ride, and it paid off. 

[Subscribe to Gamecock Central until Aug. 31 for only $29.99!]

“There was just no way we were going to take him out of the game at that point. He had pitched too well up until that point to where we weren’t going to take him out of the game under any circumstance,” Mark Kingston said. “He deserved to be there. We had the confidence he’d get himself out of it and he did.” 

The next pitch after the visit went right to Mahoney, who started a 1-4-3 double play, and six pitches after that was a swinging strikeout to get out of the inning. 

It was a seminal moment for Mahoney in a 3-1 series-evening win as the Gamecocks’ starter strolled off the mound cool, calm and collected as a roaring crowd fell silent. 

“I get fired up usually after moments like that. I don’t know. Cole (Messina) and I have worked so hard to get this thing going again,” Mahoney said. “That seventh inning, I was like, ‘What did I just do?’ It was a pretty cool moment.” 

[Become an NIL supporter of your South Carolina Gamecocks!]

It was one of many dominant moments for Mahoney, who turned in arguably the best pitching performance of the season. 

He tossed seven shutout innings, scattering just five hits and two walks with just one extra-base hit in the bunch. 

After struggling the last two weeks and needing a deep outing to preserve the bullpen, the Gamecocks’ starter turned in just the fifth quality start in SEC play. 

“Incredible. It was probably one of the best pitching performances we’ve had here in a long time under the circumstances, on the road in a great ballpark in front of a great crowd against a great team,” Kingston said. 

“For him to come through like that after a heartbreaker yesterday tells you everything you need to know about his talent but also his competitiveness.”

[Subscribe for free to Gamecock Central’s YouTube page!]

South Carolina did just enough offensively to scrape across three runs, scoring three in the fourth inning thanks to a hit by pitch and four singles. 

Gavin Casas, Braylen Wimmer and Evan Stone all picked up RBI knocks.

“That’s what good offenses do,” said Wimmer, who now has two RBI singles in as many games. “If the power’s not there, they have to manufacture in other ways. It shows we have a good offense. If one thing isn’t there, hopefully, we have another. Hopefully, that’ll take us far down the road.”

The win is massively needed for a South Carolina (37-13, 15-10 SEC) team that’s sputtered over the last two weekends. The Gamecocks had lost five straight and six of their last seven league games.

South Carolina goes into Sunday with a chance to take a road series over a top-five team. 

It starts to snowball and momentum goes both ways, good and bad. It felt like everything that could go wrong for us the last few weeks has gone wrong,” Kingston said. “Tonight, we didn’t dominate that game by any stretch…But pitching and defense wins games late in the season.”

Up next: Sunday’s rubber match will start at 3 p.m. ET with Matthew Becker on the mound for South Carolina.

Discuss South Carolina baseball on The Insiders Forum!