It all came together. After a month of tailspinning, spiraling and seemingly collapsing, South Carolina pieced everything together exactly when it needed to.
And the team that has been talking since January about being good enough to get to Omaha is now two wins away from accomplishing that mission.
The Gamecocks overmatched Campbell 16-7 in the regional final at Founders Park, sweeping the Columbia regional and advancing to their first super regional since 2018. The Gamecocks will either travel to Florida or host Texas Tech next weekend in a best-of-three series with their first trip to the College World Series since 2012 hanging in the balance.
"I thank everybody along the way that stuck with us," Mark Kingston said. "I thank everyone that stayed here tonight and helped celebrate with us winning a regional. It's a really tough league when you're at full strength, and it's a damn near impossible league when you're not. But we weathered the storm, and here we are."
Across the weekend South Carolina (42-19) scored 41 runs in the regional while only allowing 11, a completely transformative effort from the last six weeks of the season that has this team peaking at exactly the right time.
Even after a momentary hiccup — the first time all weekend the Gamecocks found themselves trailing on the scoreboard after a Logan Jordan two-run home run in the first inning — there was no panic.
Just as it did all weekend, the offense went straight to work. A Michael Braswell RBI single opened the scoring before a Dylan Brewer fielder’s choice tied the game at 2-2 after two innings, which set the stage for an eruption.
Eight batters. A dozen pitches. Seven runs. Regional over. Supers ticket punch.
"Hitting is definitely contagious," LeCroy said. "It makes the ball look a little bit bigger when you see somebody else go up there and hammer it. It's just what we did at the beginning of the season. I guess we kind of got away from it a little bit. It's baseball, things aren't always going to go your way. But things are going our way right now."
It was a flurry of runs so immediate, so forceful it more resembled an avalanche as South Carolina buried Campbell (46-15). Ethan Petry got the rally going with a line drive single to right field. Cole Messina singled on a hit-and-run to advance him to third. Talmadge LeCroy punched the first offering he saw down for a two-run double. Gavin Casas did the same, Braswell singled, Will Tippett dropped down a squeeze bunt and before Dylan Brewer singled and finally Will McGillis clubbed his second home run in as many days.
All of it came against Campbell starter Ty Cummings, who finally departed after the McGillis blast that seemingly was the hammer blow to not just his outing, but his team’s season.
"We've been screaming that all weekend," Kingston said. "Take mature at-bats, and just grind out pitchers batter to batter to batter. And our guys did that. One through nine we just took really good at-bats. That's a lineup that looks very similar to a lot of the times we scored double-digit runs, and I don't think that's a coincedence."
From there the game became about just managing innings and keeping Campbell from attaining any momentum. It briefly looked like that might be possible when Jordan hit his second home run of the night off Matthew Becker to cut it to 9-5, but once again South Carolina instantly squashed any hopes of a rally with more timely offense.
The Gamecocks scored once in the fourth on a Brewer bases loaded walk before Wimmer hit his second home run of the regional in the fifth. Five more runs scattered across the next four innings, as Nick Proctor carried the load on the mound with a clutch performance against the dangerous Campbell lineup. He threw a season-high three innings with just two runs allowed, striking out three batters and not issuing any walks.
He gave way to Will Sanders, the Opening Day starter turned reliever who is continuing to work back from a lower-body injury. Sanders added to his shutout inning on Friday with six more strikeouts in three scoreless frames, potentially playing his way into the super regional pitching plans.
"It's awesome," Proctor said about Sanders. "It was tough kind of seeing him go through the injury. But I think kind of seeing him putting in the work every day and getting healthy, it's almost a testament to the team's hard work, not just him. He's out there on the mound, but in a way we're all out there on the mound."
Whether the Gamecocks have to travel to Gainesville or will get to stay in the friendly confines of Founders Park, they look back to their best selves. They look like a team with an Omaha make-up.
Now, after it looked like the furthest thing from anyone’s mind for most of the back half of the season, it is the expectation.
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