Nobody is panicking, but nobody is shying away from the situation, either.
South Carolina still firmly has all of its goals in front of it, cliche as it may sound. The Gamecocks are right on the bubble for hosting an NCAA Tournament regional with four weekends to go in the regular season, and will open a critical three-game home series against No. 4 Kentucky on Friday at Founders Park.
“It’s just a well-rounded team,” Mark Kingston said about Kentucky. “They pitch well, they’re good out of the bullpen, they play good defense. They have a 32-7 record just because I think they’re very, very good across the board.”
Even with enough season still left to make everything so far merely a preamble, the Gamecocks are searching for a breakout weekend. They’ve lost three out of four SEC series since sweeping Vanderbilt last month, and all but two of their seven conference losses in that span have been within three runs.
Always in striking distance, but not grasping the prize nearly enough. And with just one home series to go after this weekend and the opportunities to beef up a teetering hosting resume starting to wear thin, there is no way around how crucial the next three days will be in deciding the trajectory of South Carolina’s season.
Steady is the course as always for Kingsotn’s group, though. These Gamecocks know as well as anyone how a season can turn in the last month of the season. Last season’s group won 13 games the first six weekends of SEC play and looked well on its way to a national seed before tumbling down the stretch with just three conference wins over the final four series to just barely stay in a hosting position.
"Some weeks feel quicker than others," Kingston said. "Some weeks feel long based on if it's travel, if it's home, are you winning, have you lost. But at the end of the day, our goal is to make sure we take a very consistent approach."
This group feels close, and for most of the year that has been enough. Just enough to take a game here, to salvage one there, to put it all together for three days in a dominant sweep last month. Just staying close enough, for long enough, to eventually strike down the stretch and play their best baseball heading into the most important games.
Or at least, that is the hope.
“Very, very close,” second baseman Parker Noland said when asked how far the offense is from breaking out. “It’s a very talented offense. I think we have the ability to compete with anybody in the country, really we’ve just been one hit away in most games and we’ve been working together as a group to push forward and make that jump.”
After the Kentucky series, the Gamecocks will hit the road for a weekend at Missouri before hosting Georgia. At least on paper these are softer opponents; Missouri will represent the first series against an unranked opponent since going to Ole Miss all the way back on the opening weekend of SEC play, and Georgia has been a bleak 2-7 on the road in SEC action.
If this weekend breaks well, there is at least a crack in the door for the Gamecocks to stack series wins at the optimal time of year.
Of course, it is not the first time this season such words have been spoken.
“We’ve got to get over that hump,” Kingston said. “We keep playing toe-to-toe with all the best teams in the country, but we need to win one of these series against one of these top-5 teams. Most of the time it’s a matter of one more hit, it’s a matter of one more play on defense, it’s a matter of making one more pitch that prevents a two-run single with two outs against you. All these games are coming down to one play on either side.”
It is not now or never, but now would be the optimal time to start.
****************************************************************************
Want 2 months free on your Rivals subscription? Refer a friend and they'll get 50% off their first year while you get 2 months free, and the best part? You can do it as many times as you want. Just use your custom referral link on your subscriptions page (linked above).
