RALEIGH, N.C. — They died as they lived: With self-inflicted wounds.
A season full of frustration with runners in scoring position, defensive mistakes and a collection of one-run losses leaving the team feeling like it was close to breaking out officially whimpered out on Sunday afternoon in Raleigh.
South Carolina baseball lost 2-0 to James Madison in the 1-1 game of the regional, bowing out of the NCAA Tournament before even the regional final with a meager offensive performance to cap a season full of them.
James Madison’s (36-24) Mike Mancini hit a two-out, two-strike home run off South Carolina (37-25) starter Dylan Eskew in the first inning, but it was the only blemish against Eskew in a stellar start. Tyler Pitzer followed him up and also pitched well, with the only hit he allowed being another Mancini home run. It was exactly the type of afternoon you need on the mound to start a stretch where you need three wins in two days.
But a completely lifeless, anemic offense meant the end of the season, particularly with runners in scoring position. The Gamecocks had more than their fair share of opportunities to break it open against the Dukes’ day three pitching, but just as they spent nearly the entire season doing, fell short of getting the key hit.
The Gamecocks put two runners on base in the first inning, but Parker Noland grounded out to end the frame. Talmadge LeCroy grounded into an inning-ending double play in the second inning. Cole Messina and Ethan Petry — the heart of the order — had their chance with two runners on and one out in the third but a strikeout and a flyout ended the threat. Two runners on base in the fifth ended the same way.
Even with a runner on third base and nobody out in the sixth after Petry doubled and advanced to third on a wild pitch, James Madison ace Donovan Burke induced a weak chopper to first base and then struck out the next two batters.
Burke, the rubber-armed lefty who threw 54 pitches in Friday’s game, started looking fatigued in the seventh. His pitch count for the weekend was well into triple digits, and he issued two four-pitch walks out of the first three hitters he faced in the seventh.
Tying run on second, go-ahead run on first, a pitcher who could not find the strike zone with a GPS all inning.
Jackson hacked at the first pitch, grounded into South Carolina’s ninth double play for the weekend. Burke ended up finishing the game with a staggering 155 pitches thrown in the regional, dispatching South Carolina’s season one feeble at-bat at a time.
And now, the questions begin.
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