South Carolina will host two midweek baseball games at Founders Park, facing USC Upstate on Tuesday, March 3, and Charleston Southern on Wednesday, March 4. Both games are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be available for viewing on SEC Network Plus. The radio broadcast will be provided by the Gamecock Sports Network presented by Learfield, with Cade Crenshaw and Wil Crowe covering Tuesday’s game and Stuart Lake handling Wednesday’s broadcast.
Parking for the games is cashless, requiring a debit or credit card for entry. Public game day lots open at 4:30 p.m., while business lots open between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Stadium gates open an hour before first pitch.
On Tuesday, South Carolina is expected to start sophomore left-hander Logan Prisco, who has a 3.86 ERA over 4.2 innings this season. USC Upstate will counter with sophomore Max Kaplan, who holds a 2-0 record with a 1.32 ERA and 16 strikeouts in just under 14 innings pitched.
USC Upstate recently lost two out of three games against Georgia Southern but secured an 8-2 win in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader. Johnny Sweeney drove in three runs during that victory, while Henry Zenor leads the team with 13 RBIs this season. Head coach Kane Sweeney is in his second year after leading the Spartans to last year’s Big South Tournament championship and an NCAA Clemson Regional appearance.
Historically, South Carolina has dominated its series against USC Upstate with a 17-1 all-time record, including a decisive 13-3 win last April when Dalton Mashore hit a grand slam.
Charleston Southern enters Wednesday’s matchup off their best start in school history at 10-1 following a sweep of Brown University over the weekend. Tyler Wright went three-for-four in the series finale against Brown, while Chandler Tuupo leads CSU with a .436 batting average along with three home runs and nineteen RBIs this season. Pitcher Brady Bickett has not allowed an earned run across nearly fourteen innings pitched.
Karl Kuhn is serving his second season as head coach at Charleston Southern after previous roles at Radford and Virginia, where he contributed to Virginia’s national title win in 2015.
South Carolina holds an all-time series advantage of 80-13 over Charleston Southern and has won their last four meetings. Last season’s contest ended in a 5-3 Gamecocks victory highlighted by Evan Stone driving in two runs during a four-run seventh inning.
Junior pitcher Josh Gunther was named SEC Pitcher of the Week after delivering seven scoreless innings with ten strikeouts against No.15 Clemson on March 2. “Gunther ended five of his seven innings with a strikeout and retired the final six batters of the night,” according to the release.
Freshman infielder Will Craddock earned SEC Co-Freshman of the Week honors after going eight-for-fifteen at the plate last week and scoring nine runs across four wins for South Carolina. He hit leadoff home runs in back-to-back games against Navy and Air Force.
Catcher Talmadge LeCroy returns for his fifth season after missing part of last year due to injury; he is approaching career milestones both in games played and walks drawn for South Carolina.
Sophomore KJ Scobey moves from third base to shortstop this year after spending time at Team USA training camp over summer; he has already delivered clutch performances including walk-off hits early this season.
Junior pitcher Alex Valentin has contributed two saves so far this year while striking out nine batters across just over seven innings pitched.
Following these midweek contests, South Carolina will play Princeton in its final non-conference weekend series beginning Saturday, March 7, also at Founders Park.
