No. 2 Kentucky baseball (40-13 23-9 SEC) is set to take on South Carolina (35-22 13-17 SEC) in round four of the SEC Tournament.
The two teams met in Columbia for a three-game series in which the Gamecocks took two out of three.
The Wildcats used a strong start from Trey Pooser and a big day at the plate from Ryan Waldschmidt to defeat Arkansas and avoid elimination just one day prior. The Gamecocks, on the other hand, fell in a 11-10 back-and-forth winner’s-bracket battle with the LSU Tigers.
In the battle with the Tigers, both teams traded blows the entire game with the Gamecocks jumping out to a 5-1 lead before the Tigers scored four to tie it. The teams traded runs in the fifth before the Tigers took the lead in the sixth. South Carolina put four in the bottom half of the sixth to retake a 10-7 lead.
Both offenses were held off the board in the seventh before LSU drew within one by plating two runs in the eighth and, in the top of the ninth, Alex Milazzo hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game before Michael Braswell III delivered what turned out to be the game-winning single.
Both coaches played to win the game because of the advantage it provided, which was an off day on Friday, but the Gamecocks’ experienced the downside to this approach, because they used multiple arms that will likely be unavailable for their matchup with the Wildcats. Those arms included Tyler Pitzer, Jake McCoy, Michael Polk, Connor McCreery and Chris Veach.
However, someone who will certainly be in the lineup that the Wildcats should be playing close attention to is Cole Messina, who has been far and away the best player in the SEC Tournament.
Messina entered the game against LSU white hot with three home runs in two games and he followed that effort up with a 2-4 game that included a grand slam and a RBI single that scored two more to finish with six RBIs.
Focusing back on the Wildcats, Pooser gave the team five innings, which allowed head coach Nick Mingione to save some bullpen arms, however it’s still likely Jackson Nove, Ryan Hagenow and Evan Byers will either be unavailable or used in short outing situations only.
As far as starters go, Dominic Niman appeared out of the bullpen and threw five pitches in Wednesday’s blowout loss so his status to start is up in the air. The Wildcats’ other weekend starter, Mason Moore, has not appeared in the tournament, so he could be an option to get the ball in this elimination matchup.
As far as bullpen arms go for the Bat Cats, Robert Hogan threw 48 pitches in his three innings of work and Johnny Hummel threw 23 pitches in two innings on Wednesday, so that high-leverage duo may be available after an off day in game two.
Another high leverage arm for the Wildcats is Cameron O’Brien, who could be an option as he threw 21 pitches in his outing but was not used in game two.
Both offenses are coming off of huge games, but the Gamecocks going all in use of their arms and the Wildcats saving some of theirs could be a deciding factor in this matchup.
With the stage set, South Carolina and Kentucky will clash in a win-or-go-home game at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium on Friday, May 23, with first pitch slated for 4 p.m. ET.
