South Carolina’s game one struggles continued Friday night on the road at Ole Miss.

The Gamecocks dropped their series opener 5-1 to Ole Miss behind a stagnant offense and a shaky outing from starter Thomas Farr.

South Carolina fell behind early and mustered just two hits against the Rebels for their fifth-straight series opening loss.

“We needed to play better, obviously, in all areas of the game," Mark Kingston said. "They played better than us. They were sharper. Now it’s up to us to bounce back tomorrow.”

The Gamecocks (26-13, 11-8 SEC) had trouble stitching together anything off of projected top-10 pick this year Gunnar Hoglund with the right-hander tossing six shutout innings with nine strikeouts.

They only had one hit off Hoglund, an Andrew Eyster leadoff single in the second, but didn’t put a runner in scoring position off of him.

Hoglund retired 15 straight batters to end his outing.

“Hoglund’s really good. There’s a reason why he’s rated as a top-10 prospects in the draft, but we need to do better," Kingston said. "His fastball was good, breaking ball was good but we need to fight more and be more threatening to the best pitchers in the country.”

After a solid showing last week against Arkansas, Thomas Farr labored through five innings of five-run baseball, giving up seven hits, six of which were singles, to a potent Ole Miss offense.

He’d battle command issues, walking five—one of those was intentional—on a season-high 112 pitches with five punch-outs.

The walks would come back to bite Farr for the most part; a leadoff walk to start the game and scored on a RBI single in the first before a fielding error put a runner at third and prolonged an inning and came around to score on a sacrifice fly.

Ole Miss broke things open with a three-run fourth inning, getting the first run in the inning after putting a runner on second with a strikeout mixed with a wild pitch and throwing error before a RBI single.

Farr (2-5, 3.93 ERA) loaded the bases with two walks, one intentional one, and gave up two runs on a RBI single through the left side.

“I thought Farr again wasn’t his best but didn’t let the game get away from him either," Kingston said, "and he battled and kept the game close enough to where if we swing the bats like we can we would have had a chance.”

The Gamecocks had a chance to get back into the game late with Ole Miss going to the bullpen and South Carolina immediately getting a run on a Josiah Sightler solo shot, but couldn’t capitalize on the momentum.

They wouldn’t get a hit the rest of the game and only had one base runner after the home run on a two-out walk in the seventh.

The Gamecocks struck out 17 times Friday, tied for the most they’ve struck out in SEC play, including five straight to end the game.

If the Gamecocks want to win the series, they’ll have to win two straight like they’ve done so many times this season and do it in a doubleheader Saturday starting at 2:30 p.m. ET, the third straight weekend for South Carolina featuring a doubleheader.

“At the end of the day you just have to win the next pitch, the next inning," Kingston said. "This is three weeks in a row now but we’ll come out ready to play and have a great day.”