The baseball season is approaching. As soon as the team returned from winter break, they went straight to field work on a small plot and there will soon be complete team practice. The South Carolina baseball team, under the command of the fourth year coach Mark Kingston, will start its friendly matches on January 29 with the season set to start on February 19.
The Gamecocks had a record number of clashes between the teams in the fall to help make up for the competitive entries lost with the cancellation of the 2020 season. D1Baseball paid a visit to the program and other national publications evaluated what the Gamecocks will put on the baseball field this spring by far.
The overwhelming feeling seems to be that Gamecocks are going to launch a product at Founders Park that must be competitive against the always elite members of the Southeast Conference.
In recent months, there has been a whirlwind of action with the football program as a former coach Will Muschamp and his team left while Shane Beamer came to rejuvenate the program.
While many were paying attention on the football field, there was a lot going on in baseball as well. Here are some news you may have missed recently.
– On Friday this week, D1Baseball released its recruitment ranking to players who actually signed up to be part of the program. Gamecocks ranked fifth nationally with their class of 18 men, which includes freshmen, transfer students and junior college players. Gamecocks were second in the SEC, behind LSU, which won second place behind Miami.
According to USC Athletics Communications and Public Relations, Gamecocks have a consensus among the top 10 recruiting classes. The program was rated No. 4 by Perfect Game, No. 5 by D1Baseball.com, No. 6 by Baseball America and No. 8 by Collegiate Baseball.
– Many of the pre-season rankings have started to come out too. South Carolina is out of the Top 25 in most, but not all, searches. Collegiate Baseball ranked Gamecocks 21st in its pre-season survey, which came close to the end of the calendar year in 2020. There were five SEC teams ranked in the top five in the polls, and eight in the top 25. – Texas A&M and Alabama – ranked 26th and 27th, respectively.
– Before stopping the 2020 season, catcher / first baseman Wes Clarke was third in the country with eight home runs. He also had 22 RBIs, third in the Southeast Conference, in his 16 games played with 14 races scheduled.
Clarke was starting to get the attention of national analysts and with his big start to the season last year, it should come as no surprise that he has won some national acclaim this season. Clarke was named the third Preseason All-American team by Collegiate Baseball.
– TheBigSpur.com was the first to report this week in our VIP lounge on Monday that the baseball series against Clemson has advanced a week this year. With ACC changing their schedule and having just two conference weekends before the league game begins, the Gamecocks will face the Tigers in the second week of the season.
The series begins on February 26 with Game 1 of three games, which will take place at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson. The second game in the series will be in Greenville, at Fluor Field, on February 27, while the third and final match will be at Founders Park on February 28.
– Freshman catcher Alek Boychuk had the only serious injury that occurred during the fall. Boychuk, who was particularly good in the early weeks of the autumn friendly game season, had foot surgery, which will make him miss the entire 2021 season. Boychuk will also need a second surgery later.
D1Baseball autumn report (subscription required)
Baseball America Autumn Report (No subscription required)