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About a month ago, the Gamecocks went to Charleston and lost to The Citadel. Tonight, they returned the favor.
USC jumped out to an early lead, taking a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Marcus Mooney walked to start things off, Taylor Widener walked, and Kyle Martin brought in the first run with an RBI single. Grayson Greiner and Joey Pankake followed with an RBI groundouts.
The Bulldogs responded in the second inning, scoring their only run of the night on a Gamecocks error.
Carolina padded its lead in the third inning, tacking on two more runs. Widener led off with a single, Pankake coaxed a two-out walk, and Arendas brought Widener home. A couple walks later, Pankake came home to bump the score up to 5-1.
Another RBI base hit from Martin made it 6-1 in the fourth, and Tanner English (who is faster than you are) stole home in the fifth inning to increase the Gamecocks' lead to 7-1.
The fifth inning saw two more South Carolina runs get put on the board. Greiner and Pankake both singled, then Arendas came through with an RBI groundout. English followed that with an RBI single to make it 9-1 in favor of the home team.
The final run of the night came in the next inning. Mooney singled, and Martin contributed his third RBI single of the night to get the Gamecocks into double digits.
Starter Reed Scott had a very nice, career-best outing. He worked seven innings and allowed four hits, one run, didn't walk any batters, and struck out seven. Scott earned the win and is now 2-0. Vince Fiori and Hunter Privette also pitched for USC tonight.
Greiner extended his hitting streak to a career-high 11 games, while Martin led the Gamecocks at the plate with three hits. Five different Bulldogs recorded a hit.
South Carolina improves to 40-13, while The Citadel drops to 20-32. This is the 15th season in a row that the Gamecocks have won at least 40 games. I'm no expert, but that seems pretty good. They'll be back in action Thursday when they take on Vanderbilt in the final SEC series of the regular season. The first game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Nashville.