Late surge powers South Carolina past Clemson in Game 2. Rivalry series all tied up
Cole Messina grew up in Summerville dreaming of making big plays in games like these. Carson Hornung is from Kansas, but it didn’t him long to start dreaming either.
Clemson-South Carolina is the premier rivalry in college baseball, they said, and South Carolina’s starting sophomore catcher and designated hitter wanted their moments within it.
Now they have them.
Hornung hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning and Messina blasted a two-run homer of his own in the bottom of the eighth as the Gamecocks stormed back from down three runs late to beat Clemson, 11-9, at Greenville’s Fluor Field on Saturday afternoon.
“I’ve got family here in South Carolina, and they’re South Carolina Gamecocks fans,” Hornung said. “So it means a lot to me. I know it means a lot to them.“
“It’s probably the greatest moment of my life,” Messina said.
No. 23 South Carolina’s high-scoring offense was shut out through the first four innings but delivered 11 runs in the final three frames to tie this weekend’s rivalry series at 1-1 and set up a highly anticipated rubber match on Sunday in Columbia.
The Gamecocks (10-1) also snapped a five-game losing streak to the Tigers (5-5) dating back to 2021 and blocked Clemson, which won this series 3-0 last year, from a second consecutive sweep of its rival.
Trailing 11-9 in the top of the ninth inning, Clemson had scored two runs and had two more runners on base before Gavin Abrams grounded out to secure a USC win in a wacky game that lasted nearly four hours and featured six umpire video reviews and 10 combined pitchers.
It was also the second straight game that came down to the final at-bat: South Carolina had the tying run at the plate on Friday night at Clemson before a ninth inning ground-out clinched a 5-2 Clemson win.
“Look, you can throw the records out when these teams play,” USC coach Mark Kingston said. “You can throw everything out the window. You’re gonna get a really emotional series, and it’s going to be tight. And that’s just the way it is. It always has been that way. ... Just glad we came out on top.”
Early pitcher’s duel
South Carolina’s Noah Hall and Clemson’s Tristan Smith combined for an early pitching duel by allowing zero combined runs through the fourth inning at Fluor Field, home of the Boston Red Sox minor affiliate Greenville Drive.
Hall’s luck finally ran out in the top of the fifth inning as he surrendered four consecutive hits followed by a hit by pitch, allowing Clemson to take a 3-0 lead off right-fielder Chad Fairey’s RBI double and catcher Cooper Ingle’s ground-out single.
Hall, a senior righty, ended the game with 6.0 innings pitched, five strikeouts and three earned runs. On the other side of the mound, Smith, a freshman lefty, was solid in his first weekend start for Clemson with a career-best five strikeouts.
But he issued three walks and left the game in the bottom of the fifth with the bases loaded and two outs — which kicked off a lackluster run of Clemson bullpen pitching.
After Hornung left two runners on base trying to score off a wild pitch — a critical mistake with USC trailing 3-0 — a loud, pro-Gamecocks crowd of 7,215 that included football coach Shane Beamer finally got something to cheer about in the bottom of the sixth inning.
That’s when USC right-fielder Ethan Petry smacked an RBI double off Clemson reliever Joe Allen, a hit that gave South Carolina some life, runners on base and, finally, a run.
Then came the true game-breaker: third baseman Talmadge LeCroy’s bases-loaded RBI single to left field off Ethan Darden, Clemson’s third pitcher of the day, to drive home two teammates and tie the score 3-3 in the same inning.
It could’ve been an even more fruitful stretch for South Carolina if not for Clemson left fielder Will Taylor, who made one of the better defensive plays of the afternoon by nabbing a Will McGillis’ hit right in front of Fluor Field’s “Green Monster” replica to save three more USC runs.
Clemson batters Cooper Ingle, Blake Wright and Cam Cannarella drove in four runs in the top of the seventh inning off USC reliever Matthew Becker to go up 7-3 in the top of the seventh inning — only for the Tigers’ poor bullpen pitching to allow the Gamecocks right back into it.
Gamecocks heat up
Facing Clemson’s fifth and sixth pitchers of the night, Petry and LeCroy drove in a run apiece before Hornung crushed a home run to right center field to score three more for South Carolina and give his team an 8-7 lead through seven innings.
“We really sold out to try to win that Game 2 right here,” said Clemson coach Erik Bakich, who used six pitchers, including Jay Dill, his usual Sunday starter. “Tried to throw the kitchen sink at ’em and unfortunately it didn’t work out for us.”
In the bottom of the eighth inning, left fielder Denny and catcher Messina combined for three more runs to put South Carolina up 11-7: Denny on an RBI double and Messina on a two-run home run that traveled so far and so high it nearly hit a window on a brick New York Life building looming in deep left field.
South Carolina pitcher Chris Veach, the last of three USC relievers after Hall, closed out Clemson in the top of the ninth after allowing two runs on an RBI single by Taylor to set up Sunday’s rubber match.
Kingston, understandably, expects it to be a fun one.
“You want Game 3 to mean something, and (now) it does,” he said. “This means something for our season, obviously in terms of our overall record, and now we’re going home to Founders Park where we love to play and we love to be in front of our fans. Should be a real exciting day of baseball.”
South Carolina-Clemson baseball Game 3
When: Sunday, March 3
Where: Founders Park, Columbia
When: 1:30 p.m.
Watch: Streaming only via SEC Network Plus (Kip Bouknight, Dave Weinstein)
Weather: Mainly sunny. High of 73 degrees.
Projected pitchers: RHP Jack Mahoney (South Carolina) vs. TBA (Clemson)
