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After a close game against Furman on Wednesday, South Carolina kept things rolling with a blowout, shutout victory over Charleston Southern on Friday night.
The Gamecocks took a 2-0 lead in the second inning, due in part to a couple of errors by the Buccaneers. Chris Cullen singled with one out, then DC Arendas reached first on an error with two outs and Cullen made it home. Another error allowed Marcus Mooney to make it to first and Arendas to score.
South Carolina tacked on three more runs in the next inning. Baseball magnet Jonah Bride was hit to start things off, John Jones walked, and a double by Dom Thompson-Williams brought two runners across the plate. An RBI groundout from LT Tolbert made it 5-0.
Two more runs came in the fifth inning, after Alex Destino singled with one out and DTW went yard to put the home team up 7-0. The final two runs of the night were scored in the eighth inning, when another error by CSU helped two Gamecocks come across home plate.
Starter Clarke Schmidt continued his stellar season tonight. He worked 7.1 innings and allowed just four hits, no runs, didn't walk any batters, and struck out nine. He earned the win and is now 4-0. Kyle Anderson went the rest of the way for South Carolina and also did a nice job.
The Gamecocks got off to a hot start against Clemson last weekend and then went on to lose the next two games in the series, with the offense going pretty much ice cold. Seeing as the rest of this series is at home and Charleston Southern isn't exactly Clemson, it seems relatively safe to be hopeful that there won't be a repeat performance of that this weekend.
South Carolina improves to 13-2, while CSU drops to 8-6. They'll meet again tomorrow at Founder's Park, with the first pitch set for 4 p.m. Braden Webb will start on the mound for the Gamecocks, while Daniel Johnson will get the nod for the Buccaneers.