Instant reaction, South Carolina’s season ends in Super Regionals

Flat bats

A day after smacking on a home run on the second pitch of the game and picking up seven hits through the first two innings, South Carolina’s offense was only able to rack up three hits on Saturday. USC’s first hit came in the first inning when Will McGillis singled to right center. The Gamecocks wouldn’t have another hit until the sixth when Ethan Petry singled to left center.

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Early outing

Heading into Game 2, you just knew South Carolina needed Jack Mahoney to reach the sixth, even the fifth inning, to not help you win today but to help the bullpen if USC were to force a Game 3. While Mahoney was dealing at times, Florida was able to take advantage of a few miscues. Mahoney lasted 4.1 innings and allowed three earned runs. His job became that much harder with the inconsistent strike zone of home plate ump Greg Street. Street was the same ump who worked first base last night on the non-obstruction call that involved Braylen Wimmer.

No walk in the park

One thing that South Carolina did a tremendous job of in last weekend’s regional was was their ability to work pitch count and draw walks. That wasn’t the case this weekend. To give you a comparison, USC drew 30 walks in three games last weekend. Or in other words, they averaged ten per game. In two games this weekend, the Gamecocks were only able to draw four walks.

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Home-field advantage

For a second straight game, Florida set a record for attendance. According to Florida officials the 8,851 in attendance on Saturday was not only the largest attended home game in Gators history but it was the largest on-campus college baseball crowd ever in the state of Florida. The previous record was set the on Friday night with 8,439 on hand.

While I don’t think it impacted the players much it certainly felt like some of the borderline strike calls were going their way.

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