Two very familiar things were noticeably absent from Founders Park this weekend.

The battle-axe and scythe—plastic pieces of Halloween costumes turned dugout props—were, as Brady Allen said, misplaced sometime between the final Vanderbilt series and now.

In the end, though, it didn’t really matter with the Gamecocks turning in arguably their best offensive performance of the season in a sweep over Florida.

“We definitely knew we were close at Vanderbilt for our offense coming together. We took the midweek game, got a lot of hits then and brought it into the weekend,” Brady Allen said. “We have this new philosophy hitting-wise and I think we’re just going to stick to it and keep going.”

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During the Sunday game against Vanderbilt, the win which kick started the team’s current five-game win streak, the Gamecocks (16-6, 4-2 SEC) tweaked their approach, crowding the plate a little more and it’s paying off.

Against the then-No. 5 Gators South Carolina had 34 hits in three games, 17 of which were to the opposite field.

“The big thing we’ve changed with our approach is we’re looking to hit those pitches away, and they’re throwing it out there,” Wes Clarke said. “If we stick with our approach and throw the pitches where they like to throw, then we have a lot of success.”

South Carolina slashed .293/.371/.552 this weekend and had almost half of their hits (16) go for extra bases: nine doubles and seven home runs, five of which came Sunday.

Clarke, Allen and Andrew Eyster all had two home runs during the series with all but one to the opposite field; Allen’s second home run was a 413-foot bomb to centerfield.

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For Clarke, he’s now up to 13 home runs, a team-high, after a small skid the last few weeks and is slashing .316/.480/.855 and averaging a home run every 5.8 at-bats.

“When people aren’t challenging you as much as you’d like it takes discipline to go up there and take the pitches that look so good but aren’t,” Clarke said. “A big adjustment for me was to slow it down, see the ball deeper and get my swings off when I get the opportunity because it might be the only pitch I get the whole at-bat.”

Part of the reason the offense had a good weekend and has looked better of late, according to Mark Kingston, is the lumps hitters had to take against projected top 10 picks like Texas’s Ty Madden and both Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter from Vanderbilt.

“Guys have gotten better because that’s all they see now,” Kingston said. “We’re facing the best pitchers in the country. You just hope what you get out of that is guys getting more comfortable with that velocity and a better feel for what it takes to hit it.”

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Now the Gamecocks have to continue to hit as they get into this week, starting with a midweek game Tuesday night against Gardner Webb (7 p.m., SEC Network Plus) and this weekend at Georgia.

“Absolutely we can continue to do it,” Allen said. “I have total faith in our hitters. I knew it was there all along. We might not have shown it early but I definitely think we can do this against any pitching.”