For the fifth straight season, the South Carolina baseball team failed to win more than one game at the SEC tournament.
South Carolina defeated Auburn, but the victory was sandwiched between losses to divisional foes Vanderbilt and Florida, sending the Gamecocks home to prepare for the NCAA tournament.
The Gamecocks entered the conference tournament as the No. 2 seed, having captured the Eastern Division crown. After enjoying an opening round bye, South Carolina dropped their first game of the tournament to fifth-seeded Vanderbilt by a score of 3-2. After South Carolina jumped out to an early 2-0 lead courtesy of a Tanner English two-run single, the Commodores plated runs in the fifth, sixth and eighth innings to send the Gamecocks to the losers' bracket.
South Carolina outhit Vanderbilt 6-5, but the Gamecocks stranded 11 runners, including leaving the bases loaded in the fifth inning. Freshman Jordan Montgomery hurled five innings of two-hit ball for Carolina, allowing only one earned run. Vandy pushed across two runs on relief pitcher Tyler Webb, who took the loss for South Carolina. Since defeating Vanderbilt in the 2004 conference championship game, South Carolina is 0-4 against the Commodores in Hoover.
South Carolina rebounded and staved off elimination by defeating 10th-seeded Auburn 5-3 in the losers' bracket. For the second straight day, the Gamecocks drew first blood, scoring five runs in the first five innings. Carolina got another strong performance from its starting pitcher, as Michael Roth went 6.1 innings, allowing one earned run with five strikeouts and zero walks. The Gamecock offense pounded out 13 hits and chased Auburn starter Cory Luckie after just two innings of work and nine batters faced. Senior rightfielder Adam Matthews led the charge with a 3-4, 2 RBI performance.
Shortstop Joey Pankake set the tone early by sending the fourth pitch of the game into the right-centerfield gap for a double. A sacrifice bunt advanced Pankake to third and a Christian Walker sacrifice fly gave the Gamecocks an early lead. Erik Payne's RBI double in the second inning pushed Carolina's lead to 2-0. The Gamecocks scored two more runs in the fourth, and an RBI single from Matthews in the fifth gave South Carolina a 5-0 cushion before Auburn scratched out their first run in the bottom of the frame. The Tigers would draw closer, scoring an unearned run in the sixth off of Michael Roth and another run in the eighth off of closer Matt Price. South Carolina got its 10th save of the season from Price, who gave up two hits and one run in 2.2 innings.
Third-seeded Florida sent South Carolina home the following evening in a rematch of last season's national championship series. The Gators got a complete game outing from Brian Johnson and a two-run homer from catcher Mike Zunino to knock off the Gamecocks 7-2. Florida led 7-0 after five innings and kept South Carolina off the scoreboard until the sixth inning, when Joey Pankake grounded into a double play, scoring Tanner English. Christian Walker added an RBI single in the ninth inning to cut the Gator lead to 7-2.
The Gamecocks last won multiple games at the SEC tournament in 2007, when they went 2-2, defeating Florida twice and losing two games to Arkansas. South Carolina had not lost to Florida in the SEC tournament since 2000 and had won three straight conference tournament matchups against the Gators.
South Carolina will begin NCAA postseason play on Friday afternoon. The Gamecocks, the No. 8 national seed, will host Manhattan in the Columbia Regional at 4 p.m.