South Carolina at No. 10 Florida, game 3 recap: Gators sweep Gamecocks with 12-2 victory

South Carolina was embarrassed by Florida for the third game in a row, ending a series in which the Gamecocks were beaten by a combined score of 38-11.

This game was more of the same that we saw all weekend, as the Gators hit well, defended well and pitched well. they capitalized on mistakes made by South Carolina and dominated in pretty much all aspects of the game from start to finish.

Both runs the Gamecocks got today came on homers, one from Gene Cone in the sixth and the other from Kyle Martin in the ninth. Other than that, pretty much nothing went well for South Carolina. The offense was virtually nonexistent (they were being no-hit into the fifth inning), the defense had its usual issues, and the pitching was decent, though that's mostly in relative terms, because giving up 12 runs is not decent. It's bad.

Florida is clearly a far better team, and even if they just happened to be particularly hot this weekend, it's very apparent that the Gators have got plenty of depth and are firing on all cylinders, whereas the Gamecocks have Kyle Martin and a handful of guys who come through once of twice every few games.

With the way the rest of the schedule plays out, South Carolina is going to have to do a 180 immediately if they have any hope of making it past the regular season at all, let alone deep into the postseason. At this point, I don't know whether or not pulling off a complete turnaround is possible for this Gamecocks team. If they could even win a series or two, though, it would at least show that there's some potential. As it stands right now, they look - at least during conference games - like a team that's just going through the motions (or attempting to, anyway).

South Carolina drops to 23-14 overall and 6-9 in the SEC, while Florida improves to 28-9 overall and 9-6 in conference play. The Gamecocks will be back in action on Tuesday when they host Presbyterian. First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m.