Mark Kingston addresses South Carolina's lineup plans after Will Tippett return

No. 14 South Carolina dropped all three games to No. 12 Georgia in their SEC series over the weekend, seeing the Gamecocks drop to below .500 in conference play with three games left in the regular season.

One positive takeaway for South Carolina this weekend, however, is that shortstop Will Tippett returned to the lineup. He missed a couple of weeks in concussion protocol while also nursing a minor knee injury. Tippett came back to pinch hit on Friday, where he managed to hit a ball over the fence for a two-run home run.

Still, his return will shake up the lineup just a bit as head coach Mark Kingston has had to tinker with his rotation in Tippett’s absence. When he was first sidelined, freshman Lee Ellis was considered to replace him for the time being, but Talmadge LeCroy was playing between the bases this series. He slid over to third base for Saturday’s game after Tippett’s first full game back from injury.

“I wouldn’t call it a lineup shake up,” Kingston said after Friday’s loss. “Again, this team we’re rolling out there right now is averaging 10 runs a game for the last three weeks. So a shake up would imply we’re going to move two or three guys. Does Will Tippett deserve to play? He played pretty well tonight, I’ll leave it at that.”

Despite being swept in the series, South Carolina scored 21 runs across three games this weekend. The only issue — Georgia scored 39 and averaged 13 runs per game against the Gamecocks.

Kingston said that baseball isn’t supposed to pat you on your back — it’s a tough game and things are only going to get tougher from here as the Gamecocks look forward in their schedule. Next up for South Carolina is a three-game series at No. 1 Tennessee to round out the regular season.

“This game will make a man out of you if you play it long enough,” Kingston said after UGA finished off the sweep on Saturday. “This was one of those weekends where we took a lot of gut punches that we’ve got to make sure we grow from and become tougher from. Again, tip my cap to Georgia. It’s amazing what they’ve done. They’ve turned that program in very short order thanks to the transfer portal. It’s probably the best offense we saw all year.”

Now, Kingston and his team have no choice but to look ahead as they have one of their tougher tests against the Volunteers next series. It gets underway on Thursday afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET.