South Carolina 'ready as we'll ever be' as competition heats up in SEC play

For as long as Paul Mainieri has been doing this, coaching over 2,300 games throughout his 40-year career and winning more than 1,500 times, he still finds it hard to win college baseball games.

Despite his belief of how tough winning can be, he has South Carolina off to a respectable start through the first 18 games of this season. The Gamecocks are 15-3, with most of their wins being closer than maybe some would like.

The wins haven’t come against what most would consider serious competition. But the record is in good standing.

“People don’t come to South Carolina to be able to play against Georgia State and Sacred Heart,” Mainieri said. “With all due respect, they come here because it’s in the Southeastern Conference.”

In the one series that served as an early test for the Gamecocks, they failed without question. Their only three losses came in an awful weekend series against in-state rival Clemson. And that’s why there’s some level of concern going into SEC play. Because if they couldn’t squeak out one win against the No. 10 team in the country, how are they supposed to do it against teams that are like Clemson or better every weekend?

That’s the beauty of baseball, though. One bad weekend doesn’t define a season. It’s left a bad taste in the mouth since it happened, but with 30 games against some of the best teams in the country coming up, there’s an opportunity to change the narrative.

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It all starts on Friday as South Carolina hosts No. 12 Oklahoma in the first SEC weekend series of the year. This will kickstart a run of playing eight top-25 teams over the next 10 weekends. It’s sure to be a challenge no doubt. But Mainieri has reason to believe this won’t be the same team that got swept by Clemson.

“I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” he said. “Now we just gotta go out there and play fearless and play with confidence and meet the challenge and compete as hard as we can each and every day, and turn the page when that game’s over and get ready for the next one.”

Earlier this year, before the season started, Mainieri called the SEC slate an “endurance test” with ups and downs. He told the players they would win at least 10 games and probably lose 10 as well. What they do in the other 10 games, most of which will most likely come down to the wire, is what he believes can make the difference.

“Look, I’ve coached a lot of games in the SEC. I don’t remember a lot of blowouts. There’s been some, but not many,” Mainieri said. “Most of the games are evenly matched and hardly fought. It comes down to a one-run or two-run game, and a few plays can make the difference in that game.”

While some of the wins haven’t been glamorous, South Carolina has benefited from being in a lot of close games where it needed a key play to come through in the clutch. Six of its wins came by three or fewer runs.

And that’s what it will be like every weekend moving forward. The team, starting with Mainieri, expects this first series to have a Super Regional feel. And if there’s a good crowd on hand, they hope that can help in what they hope is the start of some more winning weekends.

“I know everybody’s on spring break right now, but I would love to see a packed-out Founders against Oklahoma. Show them what the SEC is really about,” Ethan Petry said. “So we pack out the crowd here, intimidate them a little bit. They’ve never seen a crowd like that, I’m sure, probably, maybe Texas, than when they go to Texas, but that’s about it. But I think we have a good crowd, it intimidates Oklahoma for the SEC.”

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