Advertisement
football Edit

Upstate's Matt Fincher after South Carolina's 4-1 win

USC Upstate’s head coach Matt Fincher has seen South Carolina’s team twice this season, and that’s enough to know what this team is all about.

He said he’s kept up with South Carolina over the years, including the back-to-back national title years, and said this team is comparable to those.

“I’ve seen South Carolina’s good teams before and this is a good team,” he said after Wednesday night’s game.

South Carolina beat the Spartans twice this year, beating them by a combined score of 16-6. Wednesday’s game was the closest at 4-1.

USC Upstate hung around in a tie game thanks to lights-out pitching from starter Cody Brittain, who struck out nine Gamecocks and was throwing his fastball for strikes. The 92-mile an hour heater kept the offense guessing most of the night.

At the end of the day, South Carolina was able to put up a few late runs to secure the win.

“They’ve got a good team, a great program and it’s a great opportunity for us, and I feel like we did the best we could. I was really proud of the way Cody Brittain pitched. He held them in check and gave us opportunities,” Fincher said. “All in all I thought it was a good baseball game and we’ll move on to the next one.”

South Carolina improves to 35-9 after the win Wednesday thanks in part to RBIs from Gene, Madison Stokes and Marcus Mooney.

After the game, Fincher was highly complimentary of a South Carolina team that has given him grief this season offensively and has a chance to win a SEC regular season title in the coming weeks.

“I like them a lot. Every time those first five guys come up you hold your breath a little bit,” he said. “Certainly they play good defense and use their speed when they need to. They’re a good, balanced team. I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t keep going the way they’re going.”

Advertisement

Not a GamecockCentral.com member and want to get all the scoop? SUBSCRIBE NOW!

Never miss a moment with the GamecockCentral app: App Store - Google Play

Advertisement