South Carolina had one opening, and took advantage.
A seemingly dismal night at Founders Park turned around quickly when the Gamecocks ripped off a five-run eighth inning to flip a 5-1 deficit against Winthrop into a 6-5 win in their final midweek game of teh 2025 season.
"Just real happy for the kids," Paul Mainieri said. They've had so many tough times during the course of this year. And to have a great comeback like that was really special."
The key moments came with two outs and the deficit down to 5-3. With two runners on base and an 0-2 count, Jase Woita hit a chopper to the right side. It should have ended the inning, but Winthrop first baseman Alan Benhardt bobbled the ball and allowed all three runners to reach.
One pitch later, Beau Hollins ripped a three-run double into the right-center gap, giving South Carolina a 6-5 lead that Parker Marlatt held on to in the ninth inning. The win snapped South Carolina’s (27-26) six-game losing streak and completed a 13-1 record in midweek games this year, with the only blemish coming against North Carolina in March.
"I was just trying to get the job done early and drive in some runs there," Hollins said on his first-pitch double.
The biggest news of the night actually happened before the game, with Ethan Petry returning to the lineup. South Carolina’s All-American right fielder had missed the last nine games with a sprained AC joint, and the injury was thought to be a potential season-ender when he suffered it two weeks ago at Kentucky.
Petry went 0-for-4, but his return to the lineup at least added some depth — and something positive — for South Carolina.
"I was real excited about that as you might imagine," Mainieri said. "It was totally up to him and the trainer. I wasn't pushing it at all, but obviously Ethan could've just bowed out and called it a season. But he wanted to get back in there and give it the old college try, so to speak. It was a real uplift to everyone on the team."
A trio of Winthrop (28-25) solo home runs put the Eagles up 3-0. It started when Josh Skowronski led off the second inning with a shot out to left off Jackson Soucie, the only blemish on an otherwise solid night for South Carolina’s midweek starter. Reliever Ryder Garino allowed a pair of solo homers though, leading off the fifth and sixth respectively as Ethan Wilson hit one out to almost the same spot in left and Skowronski’s second homer of the night landed on the berm in right.
Freshman third baseman KJ Scobey — who had South Carolina’s only hit of the first five innings against Winthrop starter Brayden Gilley — deposited a solo home run out to left in the sixth, but that was really the only loud moment of the night offensively for the Gamecocks until the eighth inning. The Eagles tacked on two more runs in the seventh inning and seemed to be cruising to the win, but a single inning rally brought the Gamecocks back.
Evan Stone started it by getting hit by a pitch, Kennedy Jones doubled, then Nathan Hall and Henry Kaczmar singled to make it 5-3. All of it set the table for Woita to keep the door open with the error, then Hollins to give the Gamecocks the lead.
"We hung in there," Mainieri said "The kids didn't give up, and we got some big hits in that inning. Not just Beau's, but Hall and Kaczmar had big hits for us."
Three games to go in the regular season, a series against No. 1 LSU starting Thursday night at Founders Park.
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