South Carolina baseball opened the 2026 season with a 2-1 performance over the weekend against Northern Kentucky. The Gamecocks played a doubleheader on Friday, sweeping the Norse in both games but dropped game three on Saturday.
This was South Carolina’s first weekend without sweeping its opponent on Opening Weekend since 2022.
With 27 new players on the roster, this was the team’s first real opportunity to take the field and compete in non-simulated game-time situations against another opponent. While some aspects, such as some of the pitching performances, may have come as more of a surprise, the lack of offensive production and struggles were not expected.
For starters, the Gamecocks were a combined 4-30 with runners in scoring position. South Carolina had certain players on Friday who saw success, such as junior outfielder Tyler Bak and sophomore infielder KJ Scobey.
Bak and Scobey settled in during game two, with Bak going 3-5 and driving in four runs, while Scobey went 3-4 with the walk-off home run to secure the Friday sweep. The story was different for the Gamecocks' top producers on Saturday. Bak and Scobey went a combined 1-8 at the plate in the 3-2 loss. South Carolina had six other players fail to have a hit in the Saturday finale as well.
Head coach Paul Mainieri explained his thoughts about the situation after the loss.
“Obviously, I didn’t have them ready to play today,” Mainieri said. “They just needed to be a little more disciplined and ready to go. I just kind of felt like they played like they were very tired from yesterday.”
The South Carolina pitching staff produced some solid performances during Opening Weekend, especially with some key arms missing. Redshirt freshman pitcher Riley Goodman and junior pitcher Amp Phillips both made starts on Friday and had 12 strikeouts and only allowed two earned runs between the two.
The Gamecock bullpen had some solid performances on Friday that were key in both of South Carolina’s wins. Junior pitcher Josh Gunther was the first name called on in game one and went 4.2 innings with seven strikeouts and two earned runs, earning the win.
Five bullpen arms were used in game two against Northern Kentucky in the 6-5 win. Sophomore pitchers Logan Prisco, Connor Chicoli and Zach Russell provided 3.1 innings of relief in game two for South Carolina. The three combined for five strikeouts, no walks and no earned runs.
Junior right-hander Elijah Foster pitched the last inning for the Gamecocks in game two, helping hold the Norse offense with two strikeouts and earned the win. Junior pitcher Alex Valentin made appearances on both Friday and Saturday out of the bullpen as well.
Valentin earned the save in game one after retiring the last two batters he faced. On Saturday, Valentin finished game three with 3.2 innings of work and helped keep the Gamecocks in the game, striking out six batters and giving up no earned runs in relief.
Despite the solid pitching, the offensive production lacked for South Carolina, especially for players such as sophomore infielder Beau Hollins and fifth-year infielder Logan Sutter, with Hollins earning the singular hit between the two for the series.
“You hate losing non-conference games, but you also got to find out about your team, and the only way you can find out about them is by running them out there,” Mainieri said.