RALEIGH, N.C. — South Carolina baseball will walk to the edge of the cliff, now facing elimination.
A bases loaded walk, to be more precise.
South Carolina baseball let a tie game against North Carolina State on day two of the Raleigh Regional get away when the Wolfpack took the lead on a two-out bases loaded walk in the seventh inning, eventually winning 6-4 to dump the Gamecocks into the loser’s bracket.
Through two full days of action in Raleigh, South Carolina (37-24) is still the only team in a regional yet to hold a lead. The Gamecocks scored runs in three different innings on Saturday night, but gave a run back in the bottom half of the frame all three times to squash any momentum.
Superstar first baseman Ethan Petry suffered a hand injury in yesterday’s game after getting hit by a pitch, and a game of “will he, won’t he” ensued almost right up to first pitch. South Carolina still had not posted a starting lineup as late as 30 minutes before the scheduled start time and when it finally dropped, Petry did not feature.
The injury led to a host of positional changes, sliding Cole Messina to first base, moving Dalton Reeves behind the plate, Kennedy Jones to DH and most notably with Jones out of left field, Dylan Brewer into the starting lineup.
"I'm very disappointed in the loss," Mark Kingston said. "But I can go to sleep tonight knowing those guys were unselfish, and they gave it everything they had."
It marked Brewer’s first start since Apr. 26, and the light-hitting lefty was in there batting eighth.
Light-hitting, but turned into lightning.
Brewer only hit four home runs all season and none since March, but he cracked two home runs out to right field to account for three of the four RBIs in the game. First, a solo home run in the fifth, then a game-tying two-run shot in the seventh.
"I was told to be ready just in case something was wrong with him [Petry]," Brewer said. "Like 20 minutes before the game I found out he was hurt."
But he was not the only player with two home runs. NC State’s (35-20) Garrett Pennington took Garrett Gainey out to left field in the first inning to drop South Carolina in a hole and then again on a two-run shot in the third inning immediately after Will Tippett’s second home run of the regional tied the game at one.
"Pitches just got left over the zone," Gainey said. "They're a good fastball hitting team, and I didn't execute and results showed. I feel like it wasn't a terrible outing, but it was not my best outing of the year. I feel like I can improve an hit my spots a little better, but I feel like I gave us a chance to win."
A chance, but no more.
But that was the story of the night, the weekend and in a larger capacity, the season. Up and down, right there and then drifting away, in touching distance but never really in grasp.
The Wolfpack put the first two runners on base against Connor McCreery in the seventh and even after he recorded one out and Becker found another to move the team to the doorstep of escaping the threat, the walks came back to bite. Two of them, including a bases loaded one, to give the home side a lead it never relinquished in front of a raucous crowd at Doak Park.
Even after getting the lead-off man on base in the ninth inning, there was to be no magic this time. South Carolina has been down to its final out in both games of the regional. One win, one loss.
Now its down to potentially its final game of the year.
"It's going to be tougher now," Kingston said. "It's going to be a longer road, but it doesn't mean we can't do it. And if you don't have that attitude, then you're not in the right place mentally. Teams have done this, teams have lost this game and still went on to win a regional."
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