Feb. 22, 2004
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina hit three home runs in a 14 hit attack Sunday and five pitchers held UNC Wilmington to three hits in a 12-0 shutout as the seventh ranked Gamecocks swept a three game college baseball series.
Junior left-hander Matt Campbell (1-0) pitched 5 2/3 innings to get the win as South Carolina improved to 6-0. UNCW dropped to 0-4. Campbell struck out nine, walked two and hit three batters. The four relievers — Jason Fletcher, Cliff Donald, Zach Reeves and Chad Blackwell — did not allow a base runner and struck out six in 3 1/3 innings.
The 15 combined strikeouts increased the six game total by the South Carolina pitching staff to 80. Gamecock pitchers have walked 10 in 54 innings with a 1.50 earned run average.
UNC Wilmington starting pitcher Thomas Benton (0-2) walked the first two Gamecock batters in the first inning and Steve Pearce followed with his fifth home run to stake South Carolina to a quick 3-0 lead.
The Gamecocks hit three home runs to score four times in the third inning. Bryan Triplett hit his first, Brendan Winn his third with a teammate on base, and Kevin Melillo his fifth. South Carolina added single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings and closed out the scoring with two runs in the eighth. Landon Powell had three hits, including a double.
Triplett had a double in addition to his homer. Steven Tolleson, Melillo and Davy Gregg also had two hits. Gregg’s second hit was a double. Pearce and Winn drove in three runs apiece.
Campbell gave up singles to Chris Hatcher in the third and fifth innings and to Aaron Smith in the fourth to account for the three UNCW hits. The Seahawks had two base runners in the sixth when Campbell hit Matt Sutton and Neal Eichorn with pitches. Sutton moved to third on a fly out by Smith. Fletcher relieved Campbell with two outs and the threat ended when Eichorn was thrown out attempting to steal second. UNCW did not have another base runner in the game.
Coach Ray Tanner cleared his bench with 20 Gamecock players seeing action in the game. South Carolina used 19 players Saturday in a 20-0 win.
South Carolina collected 44 hits and scored 41 runs in the three game series, including 10 home runs and 12 doubles. After six games the team batting average is .409, with 18 home runs.
The Sunday crowd of 4,022 at Sarge Frye Field increased the total attendance for the three game series to 11,552.
