South Carolina suffers disastrous series loss to Oklahoma after blowing late lead

Disaster unfolded at Founders Park on Sunday afternoon.

With two outs to go, South Carolina looked to be on its way to a massive series win to open SEC play. But a series of misplays in the ninth inning allowed Oklahoma to tie the game. With a clean slate going into extra innings, the Sooners were quick to capture the lead on a go-ahead solo homer by Jason Walk that proved to be the difference in a stunning 6-5 loss for the Gamecocks.

“Well, that was a bitter pill to swallow,” head coach Paul Mainieri said. “I thought that for most of the game, we played well enough to win. Had a chance. But a couple of things, I think, ended up being our demise.”

It had been a back-and-forth affair as South Carolina (16-5, 1-2 SEC) already blew a pair of leads earlier in the game. But things looked to be looking up after it reclaimed the lead in the seventh. With closer Brendan Sweeney striking out the side in the eighth, he came back out for the ninth to finish off the game.

After recording the first out on a flyout, Sweeney walked the next batter to put the tying run at the plate. The first mistake came when a hard-hit ball towards shortstop went by Henry Kaczmar’s glove and went into the outfield.

“When we got the leadoff hitter to pop up in the ninth inning to lead off the inning,” Mainieri said, “I felt pretty good about our chances, but it just didn’t happen for us.”

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The Gamecocks nearly got out of trouble on a near-double play that Oklahoma’s Jaxon Willits barely beat out. Now just one out away, still leading by two runs, Dayton Tockey hit a ground ball towards the right side of the infield with the shift on. However, Jordan Carrion couldn’t make the play as the ball booted off his glove and rolled into right field.

The Sooners scored one run on the play to stay alive. In the following at-bat, Kyle Branch tied the game with an RBI single that got through the middle of the infield.

After Oklahoma took the lead in the following inning, Mainieri decided to take Sweeney out of the game after throwing 54 pitches. The right-hander pitched 2.1 innings with four strikeouts and two walks and was charged for one of the three runs given up.

“I had no feelings about taking him out until after the lead or the tie was broken,” Mainieri said. “He’s our guy. I thought he threw the ball well and did a good job. He just didn’t get a lot of help, quite frankly.”

South Carolina still had one more chance to extend the game or win it in the tenth. It got into a great spot with two on and one out after Oklahoma third baseman Dawson Willis made a fielding error as the rain came down.

With Mainieri choosing not to bunt with the runner at third serving as the tying run, Evan Stone popped up into shallow right field for the second out. Then, Ethan Petry hit a 3-2 pitch into right for the final out.

“I mean, if Evan thinks that he can bunt for a hit and beat the play out, he’s got the freedom to try to do that. But Evan’s been swinging the bat so well,” Mainieri said. “Anyway, I was glad to see him swing. But we hit a couple of pop-ups to the right side there in the last inning. So that wasn’t good. It just didn’t happen for us.”

Everything that transpired wasn’t the sole reason for the game ending the way it did. Throughout the afternoon, the Gamecocks had their opportunities to bring home more runs, but they went 4-for-20 (.200) with runners on and 2-for-11 (.182) with runners in scoring position.

Despite getting some big outs along the way, the pitching staff as a whole walked 10 batters and struck out nine.

“I know it’s coach cliché, but we should have won the game,” Mainieri said. “I thought we outhit them. I thought we pitched great for the most part, and unfortunately, we just did a few things that ended up contributing to our demise in the game today.”

Up next: South Carolina will make the short trip over to Segra Park to face Charleston on Tuesday. First pitch is at 6:30 p.m. on SEC Network Plus.

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