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What Paul Mainieri said after South Carolina's run-rule win over Sacred Heart on Saturday

imageby:Jack Veltri•02/15/25•

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South Carolina Gamecocks baseball coach Paul Mainieri (Katie Dugan/GamecockCentral)
South Carolina Gamecocks baseball coach Paul Mainieri (Katie Dugan/GamecockCentral)

Following a 14-0 win over Sacred Heart in seven innings, South Carolina head coach Paul Mainieri spoke to the media after the game. Below is a summary of what he had to say.

— Matthew Becker was the key to the game. He was almost perfect today. He expected him to have to pitch out of a jam today, but he didn’t have any trouble. He was really awesome and took control of the game. Had a feeling he would come out smoking today. He hardly had to use his other pitches. There’s something about his fastball that is really hard to hit, even though he doesn’t throw super hard.

— Sacred Heart helped them quite a bit with walks and errors in the field. This surprised him since Sacred Heart played so well in the field on Friday. Thought they would be tight defensively, but they had a tough time in the field. Thought Petry’s double in the gap loosened the offense up.

— The great thing about today was that they were able to play a lot of guys. it’s a wonderful thing when you’re able to get the backups in there. Beau Hollins, Jase Woita, Gavin Braland had their first hits at South Carolina. They’re all terrific players.

— Really surprised with how much the pitching staff has struck out Sacred Heart this weekend. Wouldn’t expect it every weekend but it’s been nice to see.

— He’s really high on Ryder Garino and not just because he’s Italian. He’s a strike-throwing machine. He’s thrown like that in every scrimmage up to this point. He struck out a couple of their better hitters. The future is bright for him and he’ll continue to develop.

— The players make fun of him because he doesn’t like to see them walk. The games are boring in that way. But there’s a difference between looking for walks and earning walks. He likes earning walks. They’ll take them when they come. But he’d rather see the players swing the bats and steal bases and fire up the crowd. But like he said, Petry’s big swing on the two-run double got them going. That was great baseball.

— On the Ray Tanner ceremonial first pitch, it was absolutely a passed ball and Jim Toman’s got to catch that ball. There was a lot of movement but it’s because of gravity. Thought the ceremony for Tanner was wonderful. It was wonderful to have all the former players out there. He glared at Justin Smoak for all the home runs he hit against his former team back in the day. But it was a beautiful day. Sent a message to the team that there was no way they were losing on Ray Tanner Day.

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