'It's what we're supposed to do': South Carolina reacts to making NCAA Tournament
After having a good week in Hoover, South Carolina knew it was all but safe for the NCAA Tournament. The question now became where would it be traveling next?
There were a variety of options: Chapel Hill, Greenville, even in the upstate at Clemson. But the Gamecocks ultimately landed in the Raleigh Regional and will face James Madison on Friday (2 p.m., ESPN+).
“It’s exciting,” Cole Messina said. “Obviously, you know, you want to be have a chance to make it Omaha and I think this is the first step. So we’re super excited and ready to get up there and get after it.”
For the players and coaches, it’s always an exciting feeling to know they did enough to make the tournament. But at a place like South Carolina, which has a high standard for excellence, this is just the first step.
“It’s what we’re supposed to do. Like that’s what we’re supposed to do,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “We’re supposed to get to the NCAA Tournament and give ourselves a chance to get to Omaha and obviously that’s the standard. We understand that and you want to get hot once you get to the NCAA Tournament. But our goal every year is to put ourselves exactly where we are right now. With the chance to win three games and then two games to go to Omaha.”
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Only a few weeks ago, South Carolina was in a prime position to host a regional, possibly even a Super if it played well down the stretch. But the Gamecocks went winless in their final six games of the regular season to put those hopes out of reach.
And the bad news about the losing streak is that they would go into the SEC Tournament trying to snap it. But they seemingly got back on track at the right time and advanced all the way to the semifinals this past Saturday.
During a grueling five-game stretch, South Carolina finished 3-2 in Hoover, which was one of its best runs in years. More so than that, it was a boost to go and beat some of the better teams in the SEC.
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“Obviously, you’re going to play really good teams this weekend. And we played really good teams last weekend,” Blake Jackson said. “So just having that strong competition each and every game kind of got us fired up and got us ready to get going.”
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Because of that, Kingston believes the team should have a lot more confidence heading into regional play this weekend.
“They’ve taken on more challenges than anybody in the country,” Kingston said. “We played the 35 Quad I games, which is the most in the country, we’ve beaten just about everybody along the way, almost everybody. There’s still some more challenges ahead. But I think we showed this past weekend, we showed the world how good we can be at our high end.”
The Gamecocks will open tournament play against James Madison on Friday in Raleigh. Meanwhile, NC State, the host and national seed, will face Bryant in the night cap. These two teams faced off in the Columbia Regional last year, with South Carolina earning a 6-3 win. But despite having some history with the Wolfpack, it doesn’t really mean much for this weekend.
“I think it’s a new team, new year kind of thing,” Messina said. “I think we’re a different team than last year, they’re probably a different team than last year. So it just depends on who’s going to play the best baseball at the time.”
