On a chilly night at Founders Park on Wednesday, the South Carolina bats found a way to warm up quickly and power past Harvard, 12-3.
Down 1-0 after the top half of the first, the Gamecocks were able to find and continue the momentum they had in the weekend series against Princeton. The top four of Wednesday's lineup was the same as over the weekend: Noah Campbell, TJ Hopkins, Madison Stokes and LT Tolbert. They again had similar production. Campbell led off with a walk and Hopkins directly followed, then Stokes and Tolbert drove them both in with back-to-back RBI singles to make it 2-1 after one inning.
Those four had six of the Gamecocks 14 hits and drove in nine of the 12 runs in the win. Seeing what those players have been able to accomplish as of late makes Kingston feel confident with the top half of his lineup.
"I just think it's good hitters that are settling in is what it comes down to," Kingston said. "They're just performing well because they finally know their approach, they know how to take their approach into a game and they're taking good swings. And when you're doing all of those things, the hits start to follow... obviously we want to be good one through nine but right now our one through four especially are doing a really good job of leading us."
Campbell is continuing to impact the Gamecocks as their leadoff hitter. The freshman designated hitter had two hits, scored three times, drove in two runs and stole two bases. Kingston sees the growth Campbell has had so far this season and feels good about having him at leadoff, especially with how the lineup behind him has been hitting.
South Carolina got most of its production during the fourth and seventh innings, scoring nine runs during those two combined. The Gamecocks made it completely through the order in both of those, getting 10 hits total.
Kingston was pleased with the overall pitching performance, but some of the pitchers didn't have their strongest stuff on Wednesday. Logan Chapman got the start and struggled from the start. He gave up back-to-back singles to open the game and a fielders choice would score the first run of the game. He followed with two quick innings but gave up a home run to lead off the fourth and that would end his day.
Ridge Chapman came in first in relief and also didn't have his best game. He threw just two-thirds of an inning and gave up one run. The Gamecock pitchers gave up six walks total on the day — something Kingston and the coaching staff would like to see less of.
Parker Coyne got his first win of the season after tossing 1.2 innings of hitless relief, striking out four and walking two. Graham Lawson came in and threw a 1-2-3 ninth with one strikeout to end the game. With the Gamecocks still trying to figure out who will be the Sunday starter and still considering Eddy Demurias, having players like Lawson who can come in late and close things out is important.
With Wednesday's win, South Carolina (12-5) has won five straight and opens SEC play on Friday with a three-game series against No. 2 Florida. Facing a tough task ahead, Kingston recognizes that this type of win is a good way to enter the weekend.
"You want to get a lot of guys in the game, you obviously want to win the game, but you want to see good levels of play in all of those categories and we did that," Kingston said. "We were able to get six pitchers in the game today, a lot of hitters and guys off the bench took some good at-bats, so that's the kind of game you want to play no questions asked going into conference play."