For South Carolina’s coaching staff, it wasn’t a matter if Julian Bosnic was going to be a high-level pitcher in the SEC but when.

Bosnic, who came to Columbia part of the 2018 class, took a little longer than most to get into a position to contribute but is making up for lost time and the staff is hoping he can be a marquee arms this spring.

“He’s certainly a guy who had a great fall,” pitching coach Skylar Meade said. “I don’t think it’s any question he’s battling for a weekend spot and certainly earned his keep this fall with what he did.”

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Bosnic committed to South Carolina as a two-way player dealing with a nagging arm injury and soon found out he’d miss his freshman season dealing needing Tommy John surgery.

He had a chance to show what he could do out of the bullpen in a truncated 2020 season, pitching 6.2 no-hit innings out of the bullpen with seven strikeouts and eight walks, but ratcheting things up in the fall.

Bosnic was a standout among an already deep group of pitchers, performing so well in his second fall removed from elbow surgery he’s firmly entrenched in the competition for the third spot in the rotation.

“Now that he’s further away from that surgery he’s just really blossomed. He’s a competitive guy. He’s a lefty that’s up to 95 miles per hour but he also has great off speed stuff,” Mark Kingston said. “He’s just a guy that really has developed into a really, really important piece for us. I would say he’s the first guy that hops off the board in terms of improvement.”

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Because of his performance in the fall Bosnic is landing on preseason draft boards, checking in at No. 105 in PerfectGame’s top college player list and 190 in Baseball America’s draft prospect list.

At the end of fall scrimmages Kingston said if the season started then Bosnic would be the third starter with the only question being if they wanted to start him on Saturday to give the Gamecocks a lefty in the middle of the rotation sandwiched between two righties.

The biggest thing, aside from a fastball topping out in the mid-90s in terms of velocity, Bosnic gives the Gamecocks is a hypercompetitive frontline arm.

“He had a jump in terms of velocity,” Meade said. “You couple that with the pure confidence he has, it’s a real repertoire. He has four pitches and the fastball was up to 96. I think he’s one of our best competitors on the mound. That’s one of the things when coach (Mike) Current brought him to the table to us in a recruiting meeting everyone said the kid is hyper competitive. I think you saw that through the fall.”

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Bosnic’s competitiveness, Meade said, gets amped up more when the stage gets bigger, something South Carolina needs in its frontline rotation.

In nine innings this fall pitching in the Garnet and Black World Series Bosnic struck out 13 batters in nine scoreless innings, giving up three hits and walking five.

“Whether it should be this way or not, when we went to the fall World Series I thought you saw him turn it up another notch,” Meade said. “I think he threw nine innings in the fall world series with 13 punchies and only gave up one or two hits. He certainly knows how to dial it when it’s real.”