SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASEBALL

In two years playing and working under Mark Kingston and his staff, the three seniors on this year’s baseball team and Justin Row have seen a lot.

They were key pieces last season as the Gamecocks made a keep tournament run finishing one win shy of the College World Series and endured a tough 2019 year where the Gamecocks went 8-22 in SEC play and won one conference series.

But, as the three players—Chris Cullen, TJ Hopkins, Jacob Olson—and Row all get ready to transition to life outside of the program, they have full confidence the program won’t be down for long.

“Just in last year, you saw we struggled but came on strong. It’s about the mindset here, and they do a great job instilling that mindset into the players. I think it would have been the same as last year if the injuries didn’t pile up,” said Row, who spent last season on the coaching staff. “We were healthy through the first three weekends and people saw: we took two of three from Clemson and we were nationally ranked and the injuries piled up. Sometimes you just can’t overcome it. I firmly believe in the very near future this coaching staff and the players and the training staff and everyone involved will have this program back to where everyone’s used to having it.”

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Kingston and his staff took over before the start of the 2018 season and, after a slow start, rattled off five straight series wins to earn a spot in the tournament as a No. 2 seed, winning the regional and losing a winner-take-all game against Arkansas with a trip to Omaha on the line.

Last year was more of a struggle with the pitching staff getting decimated by injuries and the offense faltering at times with a few transfers and freshmen trying to find their way in the SEC.

While the results might not have been there, players didn’t notice any dip in the team’s discipline or demeanor.

“I feel like the coaches have done a good job coming in here and instilling discipline in our team and really paying attention to small details. That carries us a long way. Everyone’s carrying themselves the right way, everyone’s getting extra work in, everyone’s being great teammates and playing the right way on the field. I feel like those are all great changes for us.”

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This year they had to rely heavily on young talent with seven freshmen or first-year players having at least 50 at-bats (four had over 130) and six pitchers throwing at least 20 innings.

Add that on to Carmen Mlodzinski, who will be a redshirt sophomore next year, missing all but three starts with a broken foot.

“Next year I look at Carmen Mlodzinski,” Olson said. “I look at Brady Allen and Cam Tringali and guys like that that can go out there and do some damage.”

The team’s graduating seniors are expecting those guys to make big jumps heading into their second seasons on campus and mix well with the Gamecocks’ incoming recruiting class.

The Gamecocks currently have five top 500 high school prospects coming to school with five of PerfectGame’s top 100 junior college prospects coming in as well.

“We brought in guys that have a lot of talent that are going to have more experience under their belt and we have a bunch of other guys coming in with a ton of talent,” Cullen said. “The guys that are here now are going to teach those guys the ropes and I feel like this program going forward is going to be incredible.”

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The Gamecocks were able to land a few top 100 prospects, getting Brennan Milone and Brett Thomas into school and having five other players get drafted expected to enroll as well.

That’s big in the eyes of Hopkins, who thinks that influx of talent will help get the program back to where it belongs sooner rather than later.

“I think the SEC’s a lot about experience and pitching. Pitching goes a long way in the SEC just because of the teams you play week in and week out,” Hopkins said.“I know they have some good arms coming in and I know they’re going to have to get guys here that have a chance to go high in the draft. I think if you go down our past teams, I think we got guys here that shouldn’t have been here. I think that’s why you saw that Vanderbilt team, there’s some guys on that team like Rocker, he was a first rounder that came to school. I feel like if we start doing that more, that’s when the 97s come.”