South Carolina rides McCoy's stellar outing to finish off sweep of Sacred Heart

Entering the final weekend of the preseason, Paul Mainieri hadn’t named a Sunday starter in his weekend rotation. He left it up to the pitching on the field to decide who should get that spot.

The two pitchers in contention were Eli Jerzembeck and Jake McCoy. McCoy took the mound first and pitched 4.1 scoreless innings, giving him as good of a chance as possible. The next day, it was Jerzembeck’s turn to throw and he struggled mightily giving up nine runs in 2.2 innings. This made the decision an easy one for Mainieri.

McCoy earned the Sunday role by virtue of pitching well in his final scrimmage start. At the same time, though, it helped that Jerzembeck didn’t have a great outing. But if there were any doubts about McCoy making his first start in the rotation, those quickly came to an end on Sunday.

The sophomore left-hander pitched five shutout innings to set the tone in South Carolina’s 8-0 win over Sacred Heart. The Gamecocks (3-0) have now opened the new season with a series sweep in Mainieri’s first weekend as head coach.

“It was great to finish off a sweep Opening Weekend. I thought there were a lot of great things this weekend,” Mainieri said. “Of course, the thing that was most outstanding was our pitching. What Jake did today was just unbelievable. Oh my goodness.”

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McCoy gave everything South Carolina could’ve wanted and more. He didn’t allow any hits and only two runners reach base.

“I would’ve liked to have seen him go nine innings of no-hit ball but couldn’t do that on Opening Weekend,” Mainieri said. “But man is he growing each time I watch him pitch. He’s growing into a more mature competitor. He’s obviously got the stuff.”

The first came on an error by Nolan Nawrocki in the first, then McCoy walked his only batter of the day in the fourth. Besides that, he pounded the zone all afternoon, finishing with nine strikeouts.

“I think I threw like 80 percent fastballs today,” McCoy said. “I mean, that’s what it is Opening Weekend, just pounding the zone with your fastball — stay ahead. Changeup and slider felt good today, too. But the fastball was the main thing, just pounding the zone.”

Between McCoy and the two other starting pitchers this weekend, they combined for 27 strikeouts over 15 innings and only allowed one run. Dylan Eskew and Matthew Becker also struck out nine in their first starts.

While McCoy was dealing on the hill, runs were hard to come by for the Gamecocks. They took an early 2-0 lead and only had two hits through five innings. But in the sixth, after McCoy’s day was over, the bats broke through to score four runs.

“It took us a while to really get going today, hitting wise. We’re going to need to hit better than we hit today as we go through the season,” Mainieri said. “… We had a lot of pitches to hit and we took a lot of strikes. I wasn’t really overly happy with the way we swung the bats today quite frankly.”

Following a pair of one-out walks, Blake Jackson ripped an RBI double down the right field line to plate one run. Nathan Hall then delivered the big blow in the next at-bat, smoking a three-run homer that traveled 366 feet at 113 miles per hour into the left field seats.

Hall, who transferred from Clemson after last season, went 1-for-3 with four RBI in the win. He finished his first weekend as a Gamecock going 4-for-8 with two extra base hits.

“It means so much,” said Hall, a Lexington native. “Growing up here, I started out being a Gamecock fan. I came to the games when I was a kid with my mom and dad. Running around the bases, hearing Sandstorm go on, it was pretty special.”

The Gamecocks added two more runs in the eighth after a throwing error that should’ve been the final out of the inning was made. This led to Ethan Petry hitting an RBI triple in the ensuing at-bat. Then Kennedy Jones brought Petry home with a single into left centerfield.

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Meanwhile, Sacred Heart wouldn’t pick up its first hit until the seventh with one out. Before that, Zach Russell was first up out of relief for McCoy and struck out all four batters he faced in 1.1 innings. Once Ashton Crowther came in after Russell, he was lights out and pitched 1.2 innings with two strikeouts and no walks.

In the ninth, Tyler Pitzer pitched a scoreless frame to bounce back nicely from his three walks on Opening Day. The right-hander struck out one to cap off a great weekend for the Gamecocks’ pitching staff in which they struck out 45.

Up next: South Carolina will travel to Rock Hill to take on the Winthrop Eagles in the first midweek contest of the year. First pitch is at 4 p.m. on Tuesday and can be viewed on ESPN Plus.

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