South Carolina baseball beats North Florida in extra innings on KJ Scobey walk-off
On a blustery Bark at the Park night at Founders Park, South Carolina baseball earned a 3-2 win over the North Florida Ospreys.
It was the Gamecock pitching that carried the day early as Terry Rooney’s group limited UNF most of the game.
After the game, head coach Paul Mainieri said, “I thought we pitched well all night.”
The offense wasn’t very good for most of the contest (USC had just one hit through 4.2 innings and none through three frames). However, things improved later for the bats. A clutch double in the 10th inning from Jordan Carrion preceded one from KJ Scobey, and Paul Mainieri’s team came out on top in walk-off fashion.
The win pushed South Carolina to a 24-18 overall record. It also keeps the Gamecocks perfect against Quad 3 and Quad 4 foes. USC now is 20-0 against such opponents.
Per Alan Cole of GamecockScoop, the Tuesday night contest was the first extra-innings mid-week contest at Founders Park since South Carolina lost to Charleston Southern in 2016. Carolina fared better this time around.
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Jackson Soucie got the start for the fourth time this season. The junior left-hander had a strong outing as he kept the Ospreys scoreless through five innings.
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Ashton Crowther followed Soucie, and he didn’t pitch badly. However, thanks to one unearned run and an earned one that came on a sacrifice fly, the score stood 2-2 in the late innings. Caleb Jones and Brendan Sweeney, though, did their jobs to keep the Ospreys to just two runs.
Soucie’s strong outing could lead to some weekend work soon, according to Mainieri. “…I took him out after the fifth inning. His pitch count was still very manageable. This way, we can have him available for Sunday if necessary.”
Ethan Petry logged his 200th career hit in the fourth inning with a double off the wall. He became the 28th player in program history to reach the milestone. His two-bagger also was the first hit of the game for South Carolina. Nathan Hall hit his seventh home run of the season to open the scoring in the fifth stanza. Scobey’s late-game heroics send the Gamecocks into the weekend having won four of their past five.
Up next: South Carolina will begin a three-game road series with the Kentucky Wildcats this weekend. All three games of the Friday-Saturday-Sunday affair will stream on SEC Network+. Game one will begin at 6:30 p.m., game two will start at 4:30 p.m., and first pitch for the Sunday finale is 1:00 p.m.
