South Carolina swept for 4th time in SEC play after latest rough weekend
In a season filled with many lows, Henry Kaczmar has been one of the few bright spots for South Carolina.
He’s gone from being a mere .200 hitter at the start of SEC play to batting near .300 with two weeks to go in the regular season. His defense has also improved, with only two errors in his last 23 games.
But, for as well as things have gone for the junior shortstop, even he can be susceptible to making a mistake from time to time. Though he hasn’t made many lately, he committed a fourth-inning error that helped Florida bring home a pair of runs in an 8-0 loss for the Gamecocks on Sunday.
“We had some defensive lapses today, which I think is the most disappointing thing to me, because you know you can deal with whatever your so-called limitations are,” head coach Paul Mainieri said. “But it’s not that hard to field a ground ball, you know? I mean those, those are things that any player should be able to do.”
Kaczmar had already turned a pair of double plays within the first three innings. On his third attempt, Ty Evans hit a ball right at him on the ground, but it went off his glove and put two runners on with no outs. The Gators were able to drive both runners in with a sacrifice bunt and then an RBI single by Ashton Wilson.
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Both runs went as unearned in Ashton Crowther’s otherwise strong first start of the year. With South Carolina (26-23, 5-19 SEC) in the backend of a doubleheader, the left-hander provided four innings of one-run ball, not including the two unearned runs. He gave up a solo homer to Evans in the second, but he struck out four without a walk.
Caleb Jones came in after Crowther and pitched a scoreless fifth before serving up a two-run homer to Hayden Yost in the sixth, putting the Gamecocks behind even further. Brendan Sweeney also gave up two runs in 1.1 innings. But the offense didn’t muster much of anything to help out the pitching.
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South Carolina had a runner in scoring position in four of the first five innings on Sunday. None of them came across to score. In the three-game series, the offense left 32 runners on base. The Gamecocks were outscored 30-3 in Sunday’s doubleheader and 39-8 in the overall series.
“We just kind of got overmatched,” Mainieri said.
It was just one of the many problems in a weekend that went about as badly as it could get. They were swept for the fourth time in SEC play and don’t have a true path to making the NCAA Tournament aside from winning the SEC Tournament.
“Just kind of got to keep playing and doing the best we can. I don’t know what else to say,” Mainieri said.
Up next: With no midweek game this week, South Carolina will be back in action on Thursday when it travels to Auburn to open a three-game series. First pitch is at 8 p.m. on ESPNU.
