South Carolina dominates No. 4 Kentucky to earn SEC series win

Chris Dearing
Sam Wolfe/Special To The State

South Carolina has hosted several top-ranked teams at Founders Park this season. The Gamecocks dropped their two most recent series against top-five programs before facing No. 4 Kentucky this weekend.

Thanks to a spectacular outing by Dylan Eskew against one of the better hitting teams in the conference and a resurgent offense that seems to have found its groove, the Gamecocks sent the Wildcats to their second-straight series loss.

Eskew pitched a career-best 6.1 innings Sunday and the Gamecocks scored six runs in the fifth inning to propel them to a series-clinching 10-0 victory in seven innings.

“Hitting, defense and pitching. That’s the most complete game I think we’ve played so far this year in the SEC,” Eskew said.

It was a much-needed win from a confidence standpoint and from a postseason outlook. The Gamecocks (29-14, 11-10 SEC) are flirting with being an NCAA Tournament regional host team with three SEC series remaining. It helps to win two of three against the No. 4 team in the country.

Since March 23, the Gamecocks have faced current D1Baseball No. 1 Texas A&M, No. 2 Arkansas, No. 4 Kentucky and No. 11 Vanderbilt at Founders Park. South Carolina started that run by sweeping the Commodores but lost the series to Texas A&M and Arkansas (winning a game against each) before taking two of three against the Wildcats (33-9, 16-5).

The Gamecocks go to Missouri this coming weekend, host Georgia and then finish out the season at No. 3 Tennessee.

“It seems all we’ve played for the last six weeks are top-five teams,” South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said. “Our Quad One wins are as high as anyone in the country. We’ve been talking about getting over that last hump. We’ve been going toe-to-toe with Arkansas and A&M and all these teams, but to have the No. 4 team that was 15-3 in our league coming into this weekend … to go 2-1 against them, I think that’s something that will give our guys confidence. Not only that we can go toe-to-toe with anybody, but we can beat anybody.”

After playing a slugfest on Saturday that saw South Carolina use six pitchers, the performance of Eskew on Sunday was key. His defense helped with two double plays, and he limited the hot-hitting Wildcats to five hits, all singles, with two strikeouts and one walk.

“Our guys were ready to go today,” Eskew said. “For me, landing my sinker, trusting it, throwing it for strikes. That’s where everything starts. If I get that thing going, it’s usually going to be a good day.”

Kingston had high praise for the junior right-hander.

“He threw strikes today with just one walk in six-plus innings,” Kingston said. “When he does that with the movement on his fastball, you got a guy who can do what he just did against a top 5 team in the country.”

The offense was the same as Saturday and the Gamecocks scored 23 runs in those two games. It might be sacrificing defense for added power, but in the small sample size of this weekend, it seemed to work out.

On Saturday, eight of the nine starters recorded a hit, and Sunday saw seven of the nine collect a hit. The big key Sunday was the six-run fifth inning in which Blake Jackson, Kennedy Jones, Dalton Reeves, Gavin Casas and Austin Brinling drove in runs. Jones led the attack with four RBIs on Sunday.

“To respond like that after a tough loss (Saturday) night, a loss that could have gone either way, I thought this was probably one of our best weekends of the year,” Kingston said. “We felt we needed to jump start the offense a little bit and put our best nine hitters in there. Obviously, it paid off for us this weekend.”

South Carolina baseball this week

  • Wednesday: vs. East Tennessee State, 6:30 pm (SEC Network Plus)

  • Friday: at Missouri, 7 pm (SEC Network Plus)

  • Saturday: at Missouri, 4 pm (SEC Network Plus)

  • Sunday: at Missouri, 2 pm (SEC Network Plus)

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