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USC wins seventh straight, trounces Davidson in final nonconference tuneup

The Gamecocks tied a season high with 19 hits on Wed. night
The Gamecocks tied a season high with 19 hits on Wed. night (Chris Gillespie, Gamecock Central)

Photo Gallery By Chris Gillespie: USC-Davidson

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The quality of pitching South Carolina will face on a week-to-week basis is about to rise significantly, but for the moment the Gamecocks bats are getting white hot at the right time.

Twenty-four hours after collecting 16 hits in a 12-6 victory over USC Upstate Tuesday night in Greenville, USC erupted for 19 hits in a 15-2 nonconference trouncing of Davidson Wednesday on a warm evening in front of an announced crowd of 6,525 at Founders Park.

Next stop: SEC play starts on Friday when Arkansas comes to town for the first three games of the always challenging 30-game SEC slate.

After scoring just two runs Sunday in the series finale against Charleston Southern, the Gamecocks have hammered opposing pitching for 27 runs and 35 hits in their last 17 innings at the plate.

“We’ve been playing some pretty consistent baseball of late,” USC coach Chad Holbrook said after the Gamecocks improved to 17-2 overall (15-0 at home) with their seventh straight victory. “We played another clean game tonight. We look forward to getting SEC play started on Friday.”

The bottom three hitters in the Gamecocks order (T.J. Hopkins, DC Arendas, Marcus Mooney) inflicted a majority of the damage on Wednesday, combining to 9-for-11 at the plate with four doubles, eight RBI and eight runs scored.

Mooney was 4-for-4 with four RBI and a walk, giving him eight hits, five RBI and six runs scored in the last two games.

“We got some big hits from guys down at the bottom of the order,” Holbrook said. “It was good to get production from our bottom of our lineup. Those guys really swung the bat well. Cone with four RBI at the top of the order was important as well. Marcus is a good little player. He does everything we ask him to do. He is playing the way he is capable of right now.

“We don’t expect to go 8-for-9 every two games, but we do ask him to compete and play defense and give our team a competitive at-bat. Looking at his walk-to-strikeout ratio, he has been very competitive in the batter’s box all season long even when he wasn’t going good from a hit standpoint.”

Leadoff hitter Gene Cone, thriving at the top of the order, was 2-for-5 with a career high four RBI. Seldom-used Ross Grosvenor added a two-run double in the eighth when USC completed its night nu scoring five runs.

Cone served as the leadoff hitter for the fourth time in the last six games, bringing much-needed stability to the critically important spot in the batting order.

Wednesday marked Cone’s 116th appearance and 99th career start for the Gamecocks.

“He just has more experience than everyone else,” Holbrook sad. “In tight games, he can do the little things that help you like getting bunts down, hit and run and he knows what to do on the bases. He never misses a sign.

“He might not be our most talented outfielder, but he may be our most polished. That gets you somewhere in tight games. He can execute all facets of the game, whatever we ask him to do no matter the situation. He has been around the block and been in some difficult SEC games.”

Dom Thompson-Williams was 2-for-3 with three runs scored. The Gamecocks punished Davidson pitching despite John Jones (0-for-3, walk) and Alex Destino (1-for-4) making minimal contributions at the plate.

“I’m encouraged by what we’ve done offensively the last couple of nights,” Holbrook said. “Hopefulyl, we can carry that into the weekend. Obviously, we have to be at our best against the pitching staff we will see starting Friday.”

Davidson employed nine pitchers, none lasting more than two innings, to no avail. USC scored three runs in the second before adding seven runs in the middle innings to take a commanding 10-1 lead after six innings.

Even though USC’s bats were booming, the key moment of the game might have come on the mound for the Gamecocks.

With USC ahead 3-0 in the top of the third, Gamecock starter Colie Bowers walked the bases loaded. He was lifted in favor of Matt Vogel, who promptly struckout the first two Davidson batters he faced before getting an inning-ending groundout to leave the bases full.

“The big point in the game was Mat Vogel coming in with the bases loaded when the game was still in the balance with nobody out and got out of that inning,” Holbrook said. “That should give Matt a boost of confidence going forward because he has a power arm with some great off-speed stuff. When he is in the strike zone, he is very tough to handle. It was good to see him throw well.”

The Gamecocks cruised from there, scoring twice in the fourth and fifth innings and three runs in the sixth as Davidson emptied its bullpen.

Cone’s two-run single in the fourth gave USC a 5-1 lead. The next inning, a RBI single by Hopkins and RBI double by Mooney increased the lead to 7-1. Three more runs scored in the sixth on two-run double by Hopkins and a bases loaded walk to Mooney.

Tyler Haswell took over on the mound at the beginning of the fifth inning and hurled the next 4.0 innings, allowing five hits and one run with three strikeouts.

“Tyler threw the ball well. He gave us a shot in the arm,” Holbrook said. “He logged some innings for us. We needed an outing like that from someone today to assure our bullpen was fresh and ready to go for the weekend.”

LINESCORE

DAV (7-9) - 000 100 010 = 2-8-2

USC (17-2) - 003 223 05x = 15-19-1

WP – Matt Vogel (1-0)

LP – Evan Roberts (0-2)

SV – None

HR – None

LOB – USC 11, Davidson 10

A – 6,525

Time: 2:49

Gamecock Pitchers: Colie Bowers (2.0 IP, 0 hits, 0 runs, 1 K, 4 BB); Matt Vogel (2.0 IP, 2 hits, 1 run, 3 K, 1 BB); Tyler Haswell (4.0 IP, 5 hits, 1 run, 3 K, 0 BB), Kyle Anderson (1.0 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 1 K, 0 BB).

HOW THE RUNS SCORED:

USC 2nd – Bride grounded to third, Thompson-Williams singled to second, Thompson-Williams stole second, Hopkins struckout, Arendas doubled to left (RBI), Mooney singled to third, Mooney stole second, Cone doubled to right (2 RBI), Tolbert grounded to first. THREE RUNS, FOUR HITS (USC 3-0).

DAV 4th – Fortier flied to right, Agard singled to left-center, Robertson struckout, Jones doubled to left-center (RBI), Jones advanced to third on balk, Pope walked, Johnson grounded to pitcher. ONE RUN, TWO HITS (USC 3-1).

USC 4th – Hopkins reached on fielding error (E6), Arendas sacrificed (U-1), Mooney singled to left-center and advanced to second on throw, Cone singled to right-center (2 RBI), Cone stole second, Tolbert flied to right, Jones flied to center. TWO RUNS, TWO HITS (USC 5-1).

USC 5th – Destino singled to second, Destino picked off (1-3), Bride struckout, Thompson-Williams singled to left, DTW stole second and advanced to third on throwing error (E2), Hopkins singled to right-center (RBI), Hopkins stole second, Arendas walked, Mooney doubled to left (RBI), Cone grounded to second. TWO RUNS, FOUR HITS (USC 7-1).

USC 6th – Tolbert singled to right, Jones popped to short, Tolbert advances to second on wild pitch, Destino flied to left, Bride hit by pitch, DTW walked, Hopkins doubled to left (2 RBI), Arendas hit by pitch, Mooney walked (RBI), Cone grounded into fielder’s choice (6-4). THREE RUNS (USC 10-1).

DAV 8th – Miller singled to right, Fortier struckout, Agard struckout, Born (PH) singled to center and advanced to third on fielding error (run scored), Jones grounded out. ONE RUN, TWO HITS (USC 10-2).

USC 8th – Bride singled to right, Scolamiero popped to short, Hopkins singled to center, Arendas singled to left, Mooney doubled to right (2 RBI), Blair (PH) walked, Williams (PH) struckout, Taylor singled to left-center (RBI), Grosvenor doubled to left (2 RBI), McIlwain struckout. FIVE RUNS, SIX HITS (USC 15-2).

Four Gamecock hurlers saw action on the mound Wed. night
Four Gamecock hurlers saw action on the mound Wed. night (Chris Gillespie, Gamecock Central)
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