Lively crowd, Clarke home run not enough to lift USC baseball past Volunteers
No more roped-off seats. No more cardboard cutouts. On Thursday night at Founders Park, South Carolina baseball fans traded face masks for white rally towels.
With all COVID-19 capacity restrictions lifted for the first time this season, the lively, raucous atmosphere of pre-pandemic Founders Park returned just in time for a crucial end-of-season series against No. 4 Tennessee. Yet the collective energy of 4,015 fans (out of an 8,242 max attendance) wasn’t enough to will the Gamecocks to a Game 1 victory.
Riding a six-run, fourth-inning outburst, Tennessee defeated the Gamecocks, 10-4, to jump ahead in a series that could have postseason ramifications for the Gamecocks.
“It was a good night for baseball. It was a good crowd. Everything was there except for our fourth inning,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “It was a good night for a lot of reasons. But that fourth inning where we just couldn’t stop them, that ruined the night obviously for everybody that was in the stands and for our dugout.”
With the full weight of the USC crowd behind him, South Carolina starter Brannon Jordan got off to a hot start on the mound, blowing three fastballs by his first batter for a strikeout. He threw two scoreless innings before his command deteriorated in the third and fourth frames.
Tennessee took advantage in the fourth inning, highlighted by no-doubt, two-run home runs by first baseman Luc Lipcius and second baseman Max Ferguson.
Jordan finished the game with seven runs allowed, six hits and four walks. He gave way to left-hander John Gilreath, who provided much-needed length and stability out of the bullpen, throwing five innings and allowing two runs.
“(Jordan) was making good pitches, and then all of a sudden, everything just was in the middle of the plate,” Kingston said. “He was either walking guys or he was throwing it in the middle of the plate, and they just looked like they had a bead on him in that inning.
“And whether they picked up something where he was tipping (his pitches) and they were on him, it’s something we need to look at and try to figure out.”
On the other side, Tennessee right-hander Chad Dallas flummoxed USC for much of the night with a sweeping slider and a fastball that touched 94 mph, striking out eight to one walk in 7.2 innings.
Dallas made two mistakes — both causing the stands to erupt. In the bottom half of the fourth, he left a pitch down the middle to Wes Clarke, who launched his 21st home run of the season to deep left field to put two runs on the board.
Four innings later, South Carolina’s go-to late-inning hero Andrew Eyster added a two-run shot of his own, adding an additional jolt of electricity to the ballpark.
But the Gamecocks (32-19, 15-13 SEC) couldn’t quite climb all the way back, snapping a four-game winning streak. With both D1Baseball.com and Baseball America projecting USC to just miss the cut as a regional host, the Gamecocks could use another signature win to add to their resume.
They come into the weekend ranked No. 11 in the RPI — just one spot below the visiting Vols.
“We had a great crowd tonight, especially for a Thursday,” Eyster said. “It helps us. It does. We may have lost tonight, but there’s no doubt that there was better energy in the park tonight. And I’m hoping it’ll be the same thing tomorrow.”
NEXT USC BASEBALL GAME
Who: No. 21 South Carolina (32-19, 15-13 SEC) vs. No. 4 Tennessee (41-13, 19-9)
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Founders Park
Watch: Streaming online on SEC Network Plus
This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 9:52 PM with the headline "Lively crowd, Clarke home run not enough to lift USC baseball past Volunteers."
