The Gamecocks won the weekend series against Auburn.By Brian Walker
The South Carolina baseball team took two out of three games from the Auburn Tigers this weekend, lifting them to a .500 record in SEC play. The Gamecocks are now in third place in the SEC East and seventh in the conference overall heading into this weekend's matchup against the Florida Gators.
Carolina started the weekend series off with a strong 8-3 victory in the Friday game. Sophomore ace Sam Dyson threw his first career complete game while also racking up a career-high eight strikeouts. At the plate, DeAngelo Mack tallied three hits in the win, and head coach Ray Tanner acknowledged that it was a strong performance in all aspects.
"It was a great outing from Sam. We played very well," he said. "We got...a couple of timely hits. Played good defense, it was a complete game for us."
Saturday's matchup went in favor of the Tigers, however, as they put up five runs in the third inning and held off a late Carolina rally to take the 6-4 win. For the Gamecocks Nolan Belcher took the loss, giving up six runs in 7.1 innings. After finding themselves down 6-0 early the Gamecocks mounted a rally and managed four runs, but came up short as Auburn reliever Austin Hubbard pitched a perfect final inning to pick up the save.
The Gamecocks were able to bounce back in Sunday's rubber match, though, behind another strong pitching performance. This time it was Blake Cooper on the mound, going six-plus innings on the way to Carolina's 10-4 victory. DeAngelo Mack had another three-hit performance to go along with his three RBIs, while catcher Justin Dalles also drove in three runs.
"I'm very happy to win this series today," said Tanner after Sunday's game. "The difference between the teams in this conference is very small on a lot of weekends and we were able to put together a good game today."
Carolina will take a mid-week break from conference play. On Tuesday the Gamecocks travel to USC Upstate before returning home to host Clemson on Wednesday. They return to SEC play this weekend with a three-game series at Florida.
