Wake up the echoes.
Between the SEC Network documentary “In Spirit” premiering Wednesday night and program legend Jackie Bradley Jr. calling a South Carolina game live on SEC Network for the first time 24 hours later, South Carolina baseball has spent all week harkening back to its best days. Even Ray Tanner was in the building for the series opener against LSU.
For one night, it was easy to look around, forget about this slog of a season and get lost in the magic of an incredible, borderline stupefying win for Gamecock baseball.
South Carolina stunned No. 1 LSU with two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win 6-5, the first SEC walk-off win of the season. True freshman KJ Scobey clubbed a game-tying home run off LSU relief ace Zac Cowan, Jase Woita hit his first triple of the season and pinch runner Dalton Mashore dashed home on a walk-off wild pitch to secure an improbable upset victory.
“Any time you beat the No. 1 team in the country it’s special,” Paul Mainieri said. “I’ve said it many times, these kids deserved to have something good happen to them.”
A seesaw game saw LSU (40-13, 17-11 SEC) jump out to a 2-0 lead on a Daniel Dickinson first inning home run and maintain it all the way through to the sixth inning, when the Gamecocks finally solved reliever Jaden Noot.
Noot entered the game in the second inning and retired the first 12 batters he faced, but a Nathan Hall single, Henry Kaczmar triple and Kennedy Jones sacrifice fly accounted for a quick rally and tied the game.
“He left one up for me to hit,” Kaczmar said. “I was in a good position to hit. To get that spark and to get our offense going at that time was really special in tonight’s game. It’s a big win for this program.”
A combination of Ashton Crowther and Brandon Stone covered all but one out for the Gamecocks, battling against a tough LSU lineup with some help from the defense. Evan Stone and Blake Jackson both recorded outfield assists in the fifth inning, with each player nailing an LSU base runner trying to go from first to third on a single to help stem the tide and keep the game in striking distance.
Even after LSU took a 5-3 lead in the eighth, it still felt like the TIgers left the door open.
Sure, LSU was sloppy. Far from the team that took a series off Arkansas last week and has earned its ranking.
But could this version of South Carolina (28-26, 6-22 SEC), the team starting down the barrel of a program-record breaking 23rd SEC loss, really take advantage? In spite of everything, LSU still had the game exactly where it wanted it, leading by two runs late with Cowan on the mound.
Even the inning prior when Hall scored a ball with runners on base, LSU right fielder Josh Pearson made a diving catch and doubled Scobey off second base to rob the Gamecocks of at least one run and the lead.
It felt like that kind of night, in that kind of season. Even Mainieri had the thoughts seep in. At this point, how could they not?
“I thought goodness gracious, can’t we get one little break,” he said. “Couldn’t the ball have just been a foot further out?”
And that was when the rally started, when a previously quiet Founders Park gained a little bit of juice, and the metaphorical calendar flipped itself from 2025 to 2010 almost on a whim.
Kaczmar’s second triple of the night teed up a Jones RBI single to trim the deficit to one, Matthew Becker recorded a key out to strand two runners, and it was all set up for Scobey to wallop a first pitch offering from Cowan into the visitor’s bullpen and make it a brand new game.
“I was sitting on a changeup,” Scobey said. “I kind of assumed it had been coming. He had been throwing it a lot first pitch. I took a good swing on it, and was able to get it out.”
Woita tripled, the third of the night for the team. Jackson was hit by a pitch for the third time in the game, one of several oddities on a borderline surreal night. Hall’s cue shot to first base nearly dropped in, but a diving catch extended the game. Kaczmar was intentionally walked, bringing Cayden Gaskin to the plate.
He pinch ran for Jones in the eighth, almost surely never expecting to be at the plate later with the game on the line.
Turns out, he didn’t have to do anything. Cowan’s 1-1 pitch spiked the dirt, Mashore was able to walk home and South Carolina had the win of its season just like that.
It does not change the SEC record, the negative records this season will set or the looming inquisition into what went wrong.
“It’s hard to win games,” Mainieri said. “But anything is possible. Today we didn’t give up.”
South Carolina will wake up tomorrow largely in the same situation. Stuck in 15th-place in a 16-team league, needing to win five games in Hoover next week to make the NCAA Tournament, still just one loss away from the worst SEC mark ever.
But tonight?
For one night, with Tanner, Bradley and surely plenty of others who remember the peak years in the building, the context of 2025 didn’t matter.
It felt like old times.
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