In South Carolina's season opener, the Gamecocks defeated UNCG, the projected winner of the Southern Conference, 7-1.
South Carolina junior right-hander Clarke Schmidt was tabbed as South Carolina's opening day starter by head coach Chad Holbrook last week. In his season debut Schmidt logged 6 2/3 innings, yielding one run on three hits and two walks.
Schmidt used his sinker to operate in the lower portion of the zone and induced six groundouts in UNCG's first eight at-bats. Schmidt, who finished second in the SEC in strikeouts last season, fanned just three batters. The relatively low total is not all that surprising given that the Spartans are a contact oriented team that hit .345 last season, the best mark in the NCAA.
"If you look at their numbers from last year, they had really good strikeout-to-walk ratio," said Schmidt. "I knew going into it I had to get a lot of ground balls. I wanted to go deep into the game and to get these guys off balance."
When Schmidt was looking to put away batters, he mostly leaned on the two variations of his breaking ball, mixing in his curveball and slider.
UNCG's starting pitcher Jack Maynard and catcher Ryan Clinch struggled to sync up in the first inning, and the Gamecocks capitalized on three wild pitches to get out to an early 2-0 lead. Sophomore center fielder TJ Hopkins started the frame with a double to right and then scored when junior Alex Destino split the right side gap with a single. Destino would score on a wild pitch.
UNCG cleanup hitter Dillon Stewart deposited Schmidt's first pitch of the fourth inning into the left field bleachers to cut South Carolina's lead in half. Stewart paced the Spartans with 14 home runs last season and was also named Second Team All-Southern Conference as a junior.
The Gamecocks responded with four runs in the bottom half of the inning, anchored around a two-run double to right center by Hopkins. Hopkins finished with three hits and scored two runs. Sophomore outfielder Danny Blair also recorded three hits. Destino and transfer sophomore Jacob Olson each tallied two hits.
Matt Williams extended the Gamecocks' lead to 7-1 in the bottom of the fifth when he scored on a wild pitch after initially being hit by UNCG's Ben Kerner.
Senior reliever Colie Bowers took over for Schmidt in the seventh and worked 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Bowers notched four strikeouts, establishing advantageous counts by locating his fastball before getting opposing batters to chase his changeup.
Oot Oot
The Gamecocks celebrated the life of superfan Bill Golding, who passed away on Feb. 10. Golding was known for frequenting Founders Park with colorful overalls and a hardhat, but is most notably remembered for his legendary "Oot Oot" cheer.
Before the National Anthem the Gamecocks took a moment of silence to honor Golding and also raised an "Oot Oot" flag in center field. Hard hats were distributed to fans who arrived early, and Golding's signature call was echoed by fans throughout the game.
"Kudos to our marketing staff for putting that together," said Holbrook. "The helmets were great and I heard “Oot Oots” all throughout the game. I think that’ll be going on for years and years and years here at this park and it's a tribute to what a great man Bill Golding was.”
Next up
The Gamecocks and the Spartans will return to action to play the middle game of the series on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Junior Wil Crowe will make his return to the mound after recovering from Tommy John surgery and missing all of the 2016 season.