South Carolina will begin its 134th season of baseball with a three-game series against Northern Kentucky at Founders Park. The teams are set to play a doubleheader on Friday, February 13, starting at 1 p.m., and conclude the series with a game on Saturday at 2 p.m. All games will be available for streaming on SEC Network and broadcast on the Gamecock Sports Network presented by Learfield.
The Gamecocks and Northern Kentucky will meet for the first time in school history this weekend. South Carolina has previously played teams in the Horizon League, holding a 7-1 record, including a sweep of Milwaukee last February. Northern Kentucky has been part of NCAA Division I since 2012 and joined the Horizon League in 2015.
For Opening Day, parking passes for business lots will be honored in Lot 1 only, based on availability. Other business lots open later in the day depending on location, and all gameday parking lots require cashless payment via debit or credit card.
South Carolina’s pitching rotation for the weekend includes redshirt freshman Riley Goodman, junior Amp Phillips, and junior Brandon Stone. Head Coach Paul Mainieri is set to start Goodman, who redshirted his first season while recovering from injury. Phillips transferred from USC Upstate after earning several conference honors there, while Stone returns following eight starts last season.
Northern Kentucky comes into the series after finishing second in the Horizon League with a 31-25 record in 2025. Josh Williams returns after hitting .280 with 14 home runs and 61 RBI last year. Jake Paulick added eight home runs as catcher. On the mound, Shawn Parnell posted a 3-2 record with a 3.37 ERA over more than twenty appearances in 2025. Dizzy Peyton enters his fifth year as head coach for Northern Kentucky; he led them to an NCAA Tournament berth in 2024.
For South Carolina, Talmadge LeCroy returns for his fifth season after missing part of last year due to injury. LeCroy has appeared in more than 170 games during his career at Carolina and could become one of just seventeen Gamecocks to reach two hundred games played if he appears in at least twenty-seven contests this season.
Sophomore KJ Scobey moves from third base to shortstop this year after spending time at Team USA training camp during the summer and playing fall ball at that position. In his freshman campaign he hit eight home runs and drove in twenty-seven runs.
Beau Hollins also returns after starting forty-two games as a freshman last season, where he hit .308 with six home runs—all coming during SEC play—and committed just four errors at first base.
Fifth-year senior Logan Sutter was named a Preseason All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) as a fourth team second baseman earlier this month. Sutter joins South Carolina from Purdue University where he was named to the All-Big Ten second team last year after batting .367 with fifteen home runs.
Promotional events for fans include an Opening Weekend rally towel giveaway on Friday and themed Valentine cards distributed during Saturday’s game.
After this series, South Carolina travels to face Wofford on Tuesday, February 17; it will be their first game ever played at Fifth Third Park in Spartanburg—a venue that opened in 2025—before returning home to host Gardner-Webb on Wednesday.
