Jaret Bennett has experience playing at Founders Park and is very familiar with the fans and atmosphere that comes along playing at South Carolina.

His sophomore year at Charleston Southern he was part of the team that played against the Gamecocks.

Now, he gets to be on the other side of it after announcing his decision to transfer to South Carolina for next season.

“I’m really looking forward to being on the other side of things, especially with the fans yelling at you and cheering for you instead of heckling you as I was a sophomore not even playing,” Bennett said, laughing. “They were giving me the work.”

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Bennett officially announced his decision on Twitter Thursday night, saying his plan was to graduate from Charleston Southern this month and enroll at South Carolina as part of the master’s program at the Darla Moore business school.

Knowing he wanted to go to business school really vaulted the Gamecocks to the top of the list, and his connection with a former head coach helped as well.

“I was looking for schools to get my MBA and that was the top priority. South Carolina was definitely up there on the list. I’d been living in South Carolina for four years and really like the area,” he said. “I had a connection at South Carolina with Stuart Lake being my head coach at Charleston Southern my freshman year.”

Lake recruited Bennett at Charleston Southern and was his head coach for a year before coming to South Carolina.

Even though he’d already been to Founders Park before, he was able to go on a visit and talk with Lake again while also meeting the rest of the coaching staff, including his new position coach in Skylar Meade.

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“I’ve obviously been there (before),” Bennett said. “The place is unreal; it’s like no college experience that I’ve ever seen when it comes to stadiums and facilities. Obviously Coach Lake and I have a pretty good relationship already and I was able to meet the rest of the staff and coach Meade, who was the guy I was really in contact with during the recruitment process. Him and I developed a nice relationship and it moved on from there.”

Bennett will be the first to tell you he doesn’t have “overpowering velo” on his fastball, but says he’s able to use good movement and pitch mixing to get outs and be productive.

What he does bring is an experience factor to the team after starting on the weekend for the Bucs the last two seasons as their frontline starter.

“I think it’s the experience factor. I’ve pitched on the weekend what would have been two full years,” he said. “I’ve pitched on Friday nights for the majority of my starting days at CSU and my experience level compared to someone fresh to the college game definitely helps.”

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Before the season ended he had a 0.71 ERA in 25.1 innings with a 2.4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Last season he made 14 starts with a 5.30 ERA with 44 strikeouts in 71.1 innings.

“I see myself as an innings eater and someone that’s going to be able to come in and get outs, whether it be in a starting role or in a relief role,” Bennett said. “I’m able to eat some innings for them, miss some barrels a couple times through the lineup to get us to the next guy.”