“I told them to pack a bunch of extra underwear, that hopefully for two weeks we would be traveling through the state of SC competing and enjoying this opportunity”, OSU coach Josh Holliday said.
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“We play three games for a reason”, said Thompson-Williams.
The teams return to action Sunday at 3 p.m. Oklahoma State can earn a trip to Omaha for the College World Series with a win, while USC will have to defeat the Cowboys twice to earn that right. The Cowboys, who have not trailed in the postseason, have now allowed just four earned runs in as many NCAA Tournament games.
Down to their last three outs, SC led off the bottom of the ninth with a solo homerun to cut the lead to four.
USC coach Chad Holbrook certainly doesn’t expect anything less than a confident and disciplined team with its back once again up against the wall. Yeah, we could’ve played better, but sometimes the opponent has something to do with it and they played better than we played. But all you can do is go out there and. keep playing good baseball, like we have been.
Thomas Hatch continued his dominance on the mound Saturday as he hurled seven shutout innings against the Gamecocks, allowing just four hits – all singles – and improving to 8-2 on the season. Sluder led off the inning with a long home run to left field, his fourth of the season and first in over two months. Thomas Hatch got the next two batters out on a pop foul to third and a strikeout.
After Sluder put the Pokes up 1-0 with his homer in the third, OSU used a two-out rally to double its lead.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves”, said Theroux, whose three-run homer in the ninth put the game out of reach.
It took Carolina five games in five days to get out of the Columbia regional alive.
“If you’ve watched enough baseball, you know there’s a big difference between a two-run lead and a five-run lead”.
The South Carolina Gamecocks couldn’t stop the schneid that the SEC has been rolling on since the beginning of the Super Regionals on Friday. The inning ended on a wild play, as Jonah Bride singled off the glove of OSU shortstop Donnie Walton.
J.R. Davis was hit by a pitch with two outs and advanced to second on a passed ball.
“(Cone) took my feet out from under me”, Theroux said.
“I wasn’t going to use Tyler unless it was tied or we had a chance to win the game. We’ve finally found our groove from top to bottom: offense; defense, pitching”.
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The Big 12 Pitcher of the Year gave up just one other hit in his seven innings of work.
