Mark Kingston believed that his South Carolina baseball team would have a strong offense heading into the 2024 season. His club is finally starting to live up to his expectations.
The Gamecocks have scored at least 10 runs in three straight games and have scored 6 or more runs in six straight entering this weekend’s series against Missouri.
Kingston shared what he has seen from his offense lately following Wednesday’s dominant 15-2 victory over ETSU.
“Well, it’s much-improved,” Kingston said. “You can point to a lot of different reasons, and I won’t go into all of them tonight, because I think it’s just all of them. Some of it’s personnel, some of it’s preparation. Some of it is confidence. There’s a lot of different things.”
South Carolina had four different players hit home runs against ETSU as Ethan Petry, Cole Messina, Kennedy Jones and Dalton Reeves all went yard.
There are 11 different Gamecocks with at least three home runs as Petry leads the way with 16. Messina is also in double digits with 12.
“Right now it’s the kind of offense we hoped to have going into the year. So just want to see it continue,” Kingston said.
Will Tippett injury update: Mark Kingston reveals South Carolina infielder is ‘TBD’ for Missouri series
One of the personnel changes Kingston mentioned came about due to injury as South Carolina shortstop Will Tippett has been out for nearly two weeks.
Tippett was hit in the head during an at bat in the Gamecocks series against Arkansas. He was placed into concussion protocol and has also been battling a minor knee injury.
Gamecocks coach Mark Kingston provided an update on Tippett after Wednesday night’s 15-2 victory over East Tennessee State.
“Will Tippett is TBD,” Mark Kingston said of his status for the Missouri series.
Tippett has started 36 of the 37 games he has appeared in this season. He is hitting .178 with three home runs and 18 RBIs. With Tippett sidelined, South Carolina has turned to several different lineups.
On Wednesday, it was Talmadge LeCroy who was the starting shortstop. Freshman Lee Ellis has also filled in at times with Tippett out.
South Carolina is coming off of a big series win over a top-5 Kentucky team and now travels to Missouri. Kingston said that he hasn’t studied the Tigers much yet, but he will do plenty of film study before Friday night’s series opener.
“All of our focus was on this game tonight. So we’ll get to work tonight and tomorrow, Kingston said. “I can’t speak on Missouri yet. … My focus was on this game tonight.”
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