For the first time in nine years, midweek baseball at Founders Park went to extra innings
KJ Scobey ended it.
Scobey’s walk-off double scored Jordan Carrion from second after he led off the bottom of the 10th with a double of his own, and South Carolina slipped past North Florida 3-2 to improve to 11-1 in midweeks.
"I was looking for a fastball right down the middle the whole at-bat,” Scobey said. “I finally got it and put a good swing on it and was able to get it done.
Scobey’s double was not only the first walk-off hit of his career, but also gave the Gamecocks their first extra innings win of the season after two previous losses.
South Carolina (24-18) starter Jackson Soucie continued his strong midweek work from last week’s start by throwing five shutout innings on 67 pitches, 51 of them strikes. He allowed three scattered hits and only had to pitch out of one jam with two runners on in the fourth inning, and extended his scoreless streak to 8 ⅓ scoreless frames.
But the Gamecocks did not record a hit in the first three innings and did not score through four, with the only hit of the opening four frames coming on an Ethan Petry double. It was the junior right fielder’s 200th career hit and made him just the 28th player in program history to reach that plateau, but three consecutive outs stranded him at second.
A Gavin Braland infield single kept the fifth inning alive with two outs for Nathan Hall, who delivered a two-run homer into the visitor’s bullpen. The blast gave the Gamecocks a 2-0 lead and moved him into a tie with Petry for the team lead in RBIs at 34.
“He’s just a gritty little hard-nosed son of a gun,” Paul Mainieri said about Braland. “I think the world of him because of the way he plays. Our pitchers pitch the best when he is behind the plate. That’s why he catches most of the time now.”
North Florida tied the game with single runs in the sixth and eighth, although the former was the latest in a long line of South Carolina’s self-inflicted wounds this year. North Florida (21-20) shortstop Mitchell Collins grounded deep into the hole at short, a ball shortstop Will Tippett was able to field, but did not have a realistic play on. Tippett fired across anyway and his throw trickled into the dugout, giving Collins an automatic extra base.
Moments later he scored on a Connor Moore RBI single, slicing the deficit in half. The Ospreys tied the game on a Seth Alford sacrifice fly in the eighth, but Caleb Jones and Brendan Sweeney threw a scoreless inning apiece in the ninth and tenth to give the offense a chance to win it.
Carrion started the inning with an extra base hit, Hollins took an intentional walk with first base open and that set the stage for Scobey, who slammed a 3-2 pitch out to center field and ended the night in style.
“You forget how exciting those are when you’ve been away from the game and you have your first one,” Mainieri said about the walk-off. “Just real happy for KJ; it was a beautiful swing he put on that ball.”
South Carolina will return to SEC play at Kentucky this weekend, starting a three-game series with a 6:30 p.m. first pitch on Friday.
*******************************************************************************************
Looking to continue the conversation? Join us on the insider's forum to talk all things South Carolina baseball
