South Carolina baseball's pitching challenge at SEC Tournament with NCAA bid likely clinched

HOOVER, Ala. — South Carolina baseball has hoisted more trophies in Omaha than it has in Hoover.

Coach Mark Kingston underlined the Gamecocks' lack of success in the SEC Tournament - just one title in 2004 - after 10th-seeded South Carolina beat second-seeded Arkansas, 6-5, to advance to the winner's bracket Wednesday.

"I think in the history of South Carolina, there's been a lot more great moments outside of Hoover than inside of Hoover," Kingston said of the Gamecocks, who won the 2010 and 2011 NCAA championships under Ray Tanner, now the athletic director.

With an NCAA Tournament bid now surely secure, Kingston and South Carolina (35-21) face a choice: Sell out with the pitching staff to make some Hoover magic, or prioritize NCAA Tournament success next week.

Kingston's comments after toppling the Razorbacks (43-13) indicated he'll look to find a point in the middle of those two extremes.

"We've gotta win a lot more games, and we'll have to win next week and hopefully the week after that," he said. "So we're kind of trying to line things up in a way that we think will give us a chance to win the next couple of weekends. It's a little bit of house money right now. We need to go back with (pitching coach Matt Williams) and decide how we use guys (Thursday), who we'll start, who will pitch in the game and everything in between."

The Gamecocks used three pitchers in their victory over the Razorbacks, with starter Eli Jones, Ty Good and Garrett Gainey each tossing between 54 and 60 pitches.

Jones, a weekend starter for most of the season, didn't want to hand over the ball when Kingston removed him in the fourth inning, the coach said.

"I don't blame him," Kingston said. "He's a competitor."

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His shortened outing produced effective results, allowing one earned run in 3⅓ innings. Good pitched well for two innings before the Razorbacks got to him at the tail end of his effort in the seventh. There, Kingston brought on Gainey, a lefthander, to put out that fire and bring the Gamecocks over the finish line. The reliable Gainey pitched three innings and gave up one run when he ran into trouble in the ninth.

"Within that number of pitches for those guys, that's when they're at their best," Kingston said.

The challenge for Kingston and Williams is to find a path through a suddenly scorching-hot LSU lineup when the Gamecocks meet the 11th-seeded Tigers on Thursday (5:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network).

South Carolina's three most effective pitchers from an ERA perspective, Gainey, Good and Chris Veach, have each thrown extensively in the first two games of the tournament.

Where South Carolina turns from here is anyone's guess. But Kingston's mission remains the same.

"The key for us is to use guys in situations where we don't overexpose them and we don't overuse them, now that it's postseason time," he said.

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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