Ethan Petry shares why he's coming back to South Carolina, what's next for him this summer
In the days after the season ended, it was a weird time for the players. South Carolina had just fired Mark Kingston and was in the hunt to find its next head baseball coach. So many waited to see who their new coach would be.
Ethan Petry, who was back home in Florida, went about his days like normal. Last Monday, he made his way over to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to go watch the Tampa Bay Rays play.
While there, he looked at his phone and got a notification. South Carolina was targeting Paul Mainieri as the program’s next coach.
“I found out and was already in like a baseball mood,” Petry said on the Garnet Trust Hour on 107.5 The Game. “I got really excited and saw that he has this huge resume. And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this guy’s unreal.'”
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It was a name that took many by surprise. Mainieri wasn’t one of the potential candidates that had been talked about throughout the week after Kingston’s firing. But here he was, now the leading guy for the job.
And less than 24 hours later, it was official. Mainieri became the 31st head baseball coach at South Carolina this past Tuesday.
Not long after the announcement, Petry was the first to show his support for his new coach. He made a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, reading “Let’s go Gamecocks #home”. And that basically confirmed he will be back in Columbia next season, a sigh of relief for many Gamecock fans.
“My personality is loyalty. I don’t want to chase any money or anything, or I mean, try to chase a championship when I can just stick around and be patient,” Petry said. “I believe that something comes good here, and obviously now, we just picked up Paul Mainieri, a Hall of Fame head coach and the most active winning head coach in college baseball. So I feel like loyalty gets rewarded, and I feel like that rewarded me right there.”
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It wasn’t a hard sell for Petry. He saw Mainieri’s resume and immediately knew this was a guy he wanted to play for.
“He’s a very old school kind of coach and that’s what I really like. I like that discipline, I like that hard-nosed, head down, work hard, treat the game right,” he said. “I think he’s great for the job, great for our players. He said to us that he’s so excited to be with us, with all of our talent on the team. So I’m sure he can take off with our talent and potentially be a national champion.”
Getting Petry back was certainly going to be a top priority for the new staff coming in. He’ll return for his third season after hitting .306 with 21 homers and 53 RBI in 61 games this year.
As for what’s next, he officially turned 20 years old on Monday. He’ll get ready to play in the Cape Cod League later this month. But he’s also been recovering from a hairline fracture in his hand he suffered during the Raleigh Regional.
“Right now, I’m just healing my hand in Florida and spending some time with my family,” Petry said. “And then I’ll be getting this right and getting ready to go play in the Cape on the 25th. So I’m really excited for this opportunity. We have a long summer left to go.”
