Burgess the hero as South Carolina walks-off Alabama
The ending of Thursday’s series opener between South Carolina and Alabama didn’t quite go as planned, but the Gamecocks walked away with the 6-5 win nonetheless.
Colin Burgess stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with one out and Evan Stone and Talmadge LeCroy on the corners.
Alabama’s Brock Guffey threw a breaking ball Burgess got just enough of to drop it in between three people in shallow left field.
“I got a first pitch either slider or curveball, I think, you know I barely even hit it,” Burgess said. “Just dropped in there, a lot of fun when you walk off a game like that.”
The walk-off single, Burgess’ second of his career, scored Stone from third and put the Gamecocks back in the win column, snapping a three-game losing streak.
It almost didn’t happen with South Carolina watching a two-run lead in the ninth evaporate in the top half of the inning.
Cade Austin gave up a game tying single with two outs in the inning but the late-game heroics salvaged a win.
“Yeah, obviously not real pretty but at this point we don’t care about pretty we just care about trying to win the game and we did that,” Mark Kingston said.
With the win the Gamecocks are now sitting at 20-20 and 7-12 in the SEC as the final month of the regular season approaches.
“I tell our guys they’re in a pennant race,” Kingston said. “The most exciting baseball and professional baseball is the pennant race at the end and that’s basically what we’re in right now. And we just have to feel like every day we come to the park, you got to do everything we can to win.”
South Carolina started the game off strong in every phase of the game. Brett Thomas got the start on the mound and pitched a career-high four innings and gave up only one earned run.
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“Four innings and one walk and that’s what we asked. We were asking our pitchers to throw strikes, minimize the walks as much as possible, let our very good defense play and when we do that we tend to give up much fewer runs,” Kingston said. “For us that’s the key and he was very good tonight.”
Thomas got help early from the Gamecock offense that delivered three home runs in the first three innings of the game. Andrew Eyster hit his seventh homer of the year in the second inning and Michael Braswell followed with his second of the year in the third.
Josiah Sightler added a three run homer, shortly after Braswell in the third, that traveled 440 feet over the right field wall and completely out of the park.
Kingston described the home run as “majestic” and said it’s just another sign of Sightler’s continued improvement in the second half of the season.
“He’s playing like the player and hitting like the— becoming the hitter we always thought and hoped he would be and it’s all coming together,” Kingston said.
With no midweek game this week, the Gamecock pitchers were able to get some extra — and much needed — rest.
“It helped our bullpen, you know, Cade [Austin] was able to pitch three innings because he didn’t have to pitch in the midweek as well as [John] Gilreath,” Kingston said. “I think that will help us so we’ll just see what it means tomorrow and the next day.”
South Carolina will now look to secure another important SEC series win on Friday, first pitch is set for 7 p.m. Noah Hall is scheduled to start.
