Mark Kingston jokes about South Carolina's starting pitching plan for SEC Tournament

South Carolina will continue play at the 2023 SEC Baseball Tournament on Wednesday morning against LSU, and the Gamecocks have some decisions to make when it comes to starting pitching.

Coach Mark Kingston indicated he’d prefer not to use his weekend starters in the opener, but he hasn’t decided who he will start on the mound.

“No, not yet. Do you have a coin we can flip?” Kingston said. “It can be a quarter, a nickel, a dime, I don’t care. Does anybody carry change any more to flip a coin? Going to have to go back to the hotel, look at some matchups. Obviously we know we’re going to play LSU, so we’ll look at who’s available from our side and then who makes the most sense.”

LSU and South Carolina will square off in the 10:30 a.m. ET matchup to open the day on Wednesday. Because that will begin the double-elimination portion of the tournament, the Gamecocks know they’ll be playing at least two more games.

Getting to the weekend starters won’t happen until at least Thursday.

“We may have to think outside the box a little bit,” Kingston said. “I don’t know that we’re ready to use any of our weekend starters yet, so we may have to get creative tomorrow.”

South Carolina opened play at the 2023 SEC Baseball Tournament by knocking off Georgia 9-0 on Tuesday morning.

The Gamecocks belted out 12 hits in the game while limiting the Bulldogs to just five. If they can get that kind of starting pitching again against the Tigers they’ll be in pretty good shape.

“We’re going to have to find a way to fill the 27 outs within the nine innings, and we’re just going to have to put our heads together and try to make the best decision that we could,” Kingston said.

“Same way we did for today’s game. I’m very happy that that process landed us on James Hicks today because he was tremendous and gave us everything we hoped he would and more.”

Hicks went 6.2 innings and allowed just four hits, blanking the Bulldogs on the scoreboard. He struck out six and walked just two.

Kingston is hopeful his outing can provide a boost to the rest of the starting pitching staff.

“Maybe he can set the tone for the next guy that gets the opportunity tomorrow,” Kingston said.

South Carolina faced LSU in Columbia, S.C., during the regular season and split the series. The Gamecocks won the first game 13-5, then lost the second 8-7. The third game was postponed due to weather and was not made up.