South Carolina returns to NCAA Tournament, learns regional destination

It’s been a season filled with plenty of highs and lows for South Carolina baseball. But none of that matters now. A new season is set to begin this week, and thus a clean slate.

The Gamecocks are officially back in the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year. They’ll be heading to North Carolina State to play in the Raleigh Regional.

South Carolina will face James Madison in the opening game of the regional. The other matchup in the regional will be 1-seed N.C. State vs. 4-seed Bryant. The winner of each game will play each other the next day, while the losers will go on to play in an elimination game.

Game 1 will take place on May 31 with first pitch scheduled for 2 pm. The Regional will be broadcast on ESPN Plus and runs through June 3, if necessary.

The Raleigh Regional is matched up with the Athens Regional — the winner of each will face off in the Super Regionals.

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This will be the program’s fourth trip to the tournament under head coach Mark Kingston. Since Kingston took over in 2018, the Gamecocks have made it to a pair of Super Regionals, most recently in 2023. But they are still looking to get back to Omaha for the College World Series, a place they haven’t been since 2012.

Before last week, the Gamecocks were at their lowest point in the season after losing six straight games to end the regular season. But behind a good run in the SEC Tournament, they were able to not only solidify their NCAA Tournament case but also gain some much-needed momentum.

South Carolina went 3-2 in Hoover and advanced to the SEC semifinals for the first time since 2017. When looking at the wins, the Gamecocks beat Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky, all of whom are top 25 in the RPI.

Speaking of RPI, the metrics were more than good enough to earn a bid this year. With a 36-23 record, the team is 21st in RPI, fifth in strength of schedule and 18th in the KPI. South Carolina was able to really beef up its resume this past week with a few more higher tier wins. It now has 15 Quad I victories to go along with three Quad II.

Assessing South Carolina’s pitching usage this week and if it can work moving forward

By: Jack Veltri

The idea of it doesn’t sound too bad. But is it sustainable for the long haul?

Because South Carolina doesn’t have a true starting rotation, Mark Kingston has had to adapt and do something different. Over the last six games (including the series finale at Tennessee), he’s gone with a bullpen game approach instead of using a traditional starting pitcher. 

Kingston’s plan has been to have a pitcher face an opposition’s lineup one time through and then turn the ball to the next guy. Some pitchers have gone longer than others. But overall, that’s the gist of it.

In a week like the SEC Tournament where the Gamecocks had to play five games in five days, the pitching staff was all but wiped out by the end of their run in Hoover. But Kingston said it was a great opportunity to get more arms in to pitch and see what they can do. In most cases, guys took advantage of their newfound chance and ran with it. 

“It’s hard to think that you can have significant growth on a team this late in the season, but we did,” Kingston said. “We did, because there were so many different challenging situations that our kids will be able to learn from. We were able to put so many young guys in situations. Through thick and thin, through good and bad, they’re going to be better because of it.”

Over the course of the five games in Hoover, the Gamecocks had to use a plethora of pitching. Here’s a breakdown of how Kingston managed his bullpen this week and how long each pitcher went.

Chris Veach — 7.0 IP, 93 P

Matthew Becker — 5.2 IP, 91 P

Garrett Gainey — 4.0 IP, 77 P

Roman Kimball — 3.2 IP, 75 P

Dylan Eskew — 3.1 IP, 65 P

Eli Jones — 3.2 IP, 62 P

Ty Good — 2.2 IP, 60 P

Parker Marlatt — 3.2 IP, 57 P

Tyler Pitzer — 3.0 IP, 54 P

Connor McCreery — 2.2 IP, 50 P

Sam Simpson — 2.0 IP, 46 P

Jake McCoy — 1.1 IP, 34 P

Tyler Dean — 1.2 IP, 30 P

Michael Polk — 0.2 IP, 26 P

Drake Quinn — 0.0 IP, 12 P

Keep in mind, Kingston really had to dig deep to get 27 outs in each game. It’s remarkable that South Carolina was able to win three games this week with the state of the pitching, combined with the abundance of errors made in the field. 

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But by the final game of the week, Kingston had to use pitchers he normally wouldn’t use. To put it into perspective, Sam Simpson came into pitch against LSU, and he hadn’t thrown in a game since March 26. So this was how dire the situation had become.

“Yeah, I hope we don’t have to play five straight games next week,” Kingston said. “But we had a lot of kids step up. Sam Simpson pitched for the first time in a long time today, and I thought he handled himself well. Eli got us out of a big jam. Matthew Becker had a couple decent outings this weekend. Garrett gave up that home run there at the end, but he’s one of our guys, and that will not change.”

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