South Carolina survives Florida's ferocious comeback to secure series victory
As soon as the ball left Dalton Reeves’ bat, he knew it was gone. From there, he couldn’t remember what happened as he rounded the bases.
“I blacked out going around the bases, I was really excited,” Reeves said. “I feel like that was definitely a momentum shifter for us, like, ‘Hey, okay, we’re going to shut them down.’ To be able to do that for my team and really put it in for those guys that we can do this, it was a really fun moment.”
Little did Reeves or anyone know at the time, but his two-run homer in the seventh inning wouldn’t be the nail in the coffin. In fact, it was one of the final stress-free moments for South Carolina.
After leading by as much as six runs, the Gamecocks saw their lead slowly slip away. But they managed to hang on to win 9-8 over No. 24 Florida on Saturday.
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“Again, we held on, that’s the important thing. I wish it wouldn’t have gotten so close there at the end,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “But maybe we needed to go through that a little bit just to get a little stronger and more closer as a team.”
South Carolina (25-10, 8-6 SEC) has now won the first two games of this weekend, clinching a series victory in the process. For Florida, the series loss snaps a streak of winning 15 straight home series, dating back to April 22-24, 2022.
So how did they do it?
Going into the eighth with a 9-3 lead, Roman Kimball quickly put two runners on, bringing an end to his outing. He pitched well over three innings, but it was time for a change. So the team called on Connor McCreery to come in and try to get out of a small jam.
But unlike a few nights ago, McCreery couldn’t command the zone. Instead, the Gators plated four runs to bring the lead down to just one. Pressure was on more than ever.
With one out, college baseball’s hottest hitter Jac Caglianone strolled to the plate looking to do some damage. It was situations like this that he was made for.
“I mean, Caglianone is probably, if not the best hitter in the country, in the top two. He’s really good,” Kingston said. “Even his outs today were really hard. You just have to try to try to mitigate his impact on the game as much as you can, based on the score, based on runners, based on the situation of the game.”
On a 2-1 pitch, Caglianone got a good pitch. But he lined out to Will Tippett, who was playing over on the second base side with the shift on. That was only the second out, though. McCreery’s job wasn’t done yet.
This was the right-hander’s mess to get out of. And he did as he got Colby Shelton to fly out to shallow right field. Inning over. Big exhale.
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However, there was still an entire inning to go. And Kingston wasn’t going to send McCreery back out for the ninth. So he turned to freshman right-hander Tyler Pitzer, who moved back to the bullpen after a few weekend starts.
“You kind of assume someone’s going to go in after his inning,” Pitzer said. “Hearing my name called, I was kind of like, alright, I have the ability to do this. Just need to execute everything to my best.”
Despite not having to face guys like Caglianone or Shelton, the middle of the order was still due up for Florida. To start things off, Pitzer struck out Tyler Shelnut. Then, after a walk and single, the Gators had the winning run on first with one out.
It was of the utmost importance for Pitzer to lock back in before things got out of hand. And that’s just what he did.
“I mean, we’re all a bit on edge, right? It’s a big ballgame, a freshman is coming in. And the tying run was at second and the winning run was at first. So yeah, we’re all a little bit nervous. But we don’t have time to be nervous. We have to be thinking and focus on the game,” Kingston said.
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Pitzer struck out Ashton Wilson for the second out, then he got Michael Robertson to ground out to first to seal the deal.
“It wasn’t easy. They can’t all be easy. They can’t all be pretty,” Kingston said. “But every run we got early on in the game we needed at the end. So they just played together. They picked each other up and just really proud of them.”
Up next: South Carolina will go for the series sweep over Florida on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is at 12 p.m. on SEC Network. Matthew Becker (4-1, 3.38 ERA) will make his fourth start of the year.
