It’s taken some time, but Mark Kingston thinks his pitchers are learning day by day what the coaching staff expects out of them.

After struggling to find the strike zone some over fall scrimmages so far, Kingston was pleased with the young pitching staff for cutting down on their free passes.

“Our pitchers, slowly but surely, are figuring out what we expect: pound the strike zone, work at a good pace, rely on your defense,” he said. “We’re starting to get a feel of who’s going to be able to do that on the mound.”

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The Gamecocks threw a handful of young or inexperienced arms in Wednesday’s scrimmage, including redshirt freshman Jake Wright and true freshmen Parker Coyne, Cam Tringali and Corey Stone.

Ridge Chapman, LT Tolbert and Hayden Heflin also saw time on the mound.

They all pitched to contact, not putting up gaudy strikeout numbers, and let the defense work behind them. Kyle Jacobsen had a nice running grab in centerfield to take away a hit and TJ Hopkins was inches away from a diving grab in left to end the scrimmage.

That’s the kind of defense Kingston likes, and it could potentially carry the Gamecocks a long way this season.

“Today I thought was our best combination of pitching and defense,” Kingston said. “Pitchers did a better job of trying to work quick, pound the strike zone. Defense played errorless baseball behind them and those two things have to work hand in hand.”

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The defense was one of the better ones in the SEC last season, ranking in the middle of the pack with a .974 percentage.

It’s something Kingston can lean on while he continues to instill his hitting and pitching philosophies.

“I think defensively we’re going to be just fine. It was a good defensive team last year, and I think we’re going to be very good again this year. I think our hitters have made really good progress this fall.”

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South Carolina will have one more set of scrimmages after the players return from fall break this weekend.

The Garnet and Black World Series will likely be Wednesday and Friday under the lights at Founders Park. Kingston said first pitch will most likely be at 6:30 p.m.

In years past, two senior captains decided the teams, last year being Reed Scott and Josh Reagan. This year Kingston’s not sure how the teams will be divided and will know soon if it’ll be the coaches or players doing it.

“Still working through that,” he said, smiling. “We’re still trying to decide if we want the coaches to pick the teams or if we’ll let the players. We’ll know shortly.”