Gamecocks use dominant pitching, early offense to take down Bulldogs
Ask Will Sanders before his start Tuesday on how he was feeling and his answer would probably differ greatly than if you asked him about two hours later.
Sanders, who stitched together five one-hit innings Tuesday night in the Gamecocks’ 8-3 win over The Citadel, had what he described as an awful pregame bullpen session only to turn around and dominate up and down the lineup.
“Well the bullpen was a little interesting. It did not go very well. After that I was like, ‘It can’t get much worse,”’ Sanders said postgame. “I was ready to go out there and compete and have fun…It went well.”
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Sanders (3-1, 2.20 ERA) turned in a career night, carrying a no-hitter into the fifth inning and striking out a career-best 10 hitters to just one walk.
He’d issue the free pass with one out in the second and retire 10 straight before a leadoff home run in the fifth broke up a shutout and Sanders’s no-hitter.
The lanky right-hander dominated, throwing just 67 pitches in five innings with 51 strikes. Of his 10 strikeouts, nine were swinging and only four of the 17 batters faced saw two-ball counts.
“Will Sanders, that was his best outing. I don’t know if he was motivated by what he saw this past weekend, I don’t know if it was the evolution of a freshman that’s getting better,” Mark Kingston said.
“The most important thing for me was he had command so that he only threw 67 pitches through five innings. That will afford us the possibility to use him on Sunday cause he didn’t have to throw 100 pitches to get to five innings. It allows us some flexibility going into the weekend, which was really important.”
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It was a career-high in innings for Sanders as well, a change of pace after going just one inning in his start last week.
“Truthfully I didn’t like we were giving up as many runs as we were on Tuesdays. There had been a trend where we were scoring a lot but giving up more than we wanted to,” Kingston said. “The weekend we pitch really well but Tuesdays of late haven’t been quite as sharp. I wanted to make the statement that we expect that on Tuesdays as well, and I thought Will did that.”
Sanders was afforded some breathing room very early with the Gamecocks (13-6, 1-2 SEC) jumping out to a early lead.
They’d score in each of the first five innings Tuesday, including plating six of their eight runs in the first three innings, aided by extra-base hits.
Wes Clarke mashed his team-leading 11th home run in the first to put the Gamecocks up 2-0 before Jeff Heinrich opened things up in the third with a two-out, three-run double in the third.
They’d tack on two more, a run apiece, the next two innings in what turned into a well-rounded offensive performance.
Six of the team’s nine starters picked up hits with three having multi-hit days; Braylen Wimmer, Colin Burgess and George Callil all went 2-for-4 with both Burgess and Callil picking up RBI singles.
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“It’s big for confidence, which is always important when hitting,” Heinrich said. “I think it’s huge swinging it like this going to SEC play again with Florida.”
The Gamecocks, after ending a six-game losing skid Sunday, take a two-game winning spurt into this weekend’s series with No. 5 Florida hoping to extend it even further.
“The momentum was kind of always there. We just needed a little spark to get something going. That game Sunday against Vandy we really came together as a team,” Sanders said. “As long as the energy is good, we’re really hard to beat. What I was trying to do at least was give my team a couple solid innings.”
