The energy was low, and so was the level of execution for the first five innings.

A glum atmosphere at Founders Park in the wake of the Clemson debacle saw South Carolina baseball commit three early errors and spend most of the night in a midweek hole against Davidson, but a five-run sixth inning salvaged the night and propelled the Gamecocks to a 7-3 victory.

"It wasn't a thing of beauty out there," Paul Mainieri said. "But we'll take the win and move on."

For most of a windy, rainy night at Founders Park, there was an unmistakable hangover from the weekend. South Carolina (10-3) was slow, lethargic and making mistakes it had not been making the first two weeks of the season.

Usually sure-handed shortstop Henry Kaczmar booted a routine double play ball in the second inning, and it opened the door for big trouble.

Starting pitcher Ryder Garino only allowed two hits in a solid three innings of work, but one of them was on a mistake right after the error. An inning which should have had nobody on base had two on instead, and Davidson’s (4-7) Jack Cotrone curled a three-run home run inside the left field foul pole to inflict maximum damage off the error.

"It was too bad we didn't make that double play ball for Garino and then he gave up the three-run home run after that," Mainieri said. "But outside of that I thought he threw the ball well."

Kaczmar had another error later in the game, and second baseman Nolan Nawrocki also flubbed a routine grounder for his second consecutive game with an error. As a team South Carolina has now committed at least one error in five consecutive games, and has seven errors overall in the stretch.

Sloppy baseball with a sleepy feel.

"I just think some days guys don't make the plays and it's part of the game," Mainieri said. "But we need to play better defense than that, there's no question about it. That was the only discouraging thing of the night for me."

South Carolina put one run back on Kaczmar’s first home run as a Gamecock in the third inning, the start of a two-hit, two RBI game the struggling shortstop badly needed. But it was one of just three hits in the first five innings for the home team, which still trailed 3-1 after Jackson Soucie and Tyler Pitzer held the WIldcats hitless through the middle innings.

"It was great to see Henry Kaczmar swing the bat well," Mainieri said. "He hit the big home run of course to get us on the board, and then had another really good hit.

Back-to-back sharp singles by freshmen Beau Hollins and KJ Scobey put the tying runs on base, setting up another freshman, catcher Gavin Braland, to bunt them over. Braland got the bunt down, and Davidson pitcher Adam Katz airmailed the throw to first.

All hands were safe, and the door flew open. Kaczmar’s bases loaded walk trimmed the deficit in half, then Nathan Hall stepped up with the biggest hit of the night. The lead-off hitter dropped a two-run single into center, turning the game around and giving South Carolina a lead it never relinquished.

“I saw the infield was in and I was just trying to get it past the infield," Hall said. "It wasn’t an ideal pitch or an ideal swing, but I think I put enough of a swing on it to help my team get some runs on the board.”

That was the night for South Carolina.

Not ideal, but enough.

"Honestly, I don't think we played too well today," Hall said. "And the fact that we were still able to pull out a pretty decent win against a good Davidson team, it was a positive for sure."

An Ethan Petry RBI double that missed being a home run by about three feet in center field plated an insurance run, and two more Jase Woita RBIs made it a comfortable finish for relievers Brandon Stone and Caleb Jones.

Hall, Petry and Woita delivering the offense has been the story all year. At least for one night, someone else stepped up alongside them.

The Gamecocks will try to remain undefeated in midweeks in tomorrow’s 7 p.m. ET first pitch in Charleston against The Citadel.

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