Carolina's Bats Go Ice Cold In Rubber Match Loss To Arkansas

South Carolina's Baseball team couldn't string together enough hits on Sunday, and dropped their third straight SEC series.

Just when Mark Kingston and his ball club ended a five-game losing streak on Saturday night and seemingly had some confidence going into game three against the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Gamecocks, however, fell flat on their face in the rubber match, losing 5-1 in a game that unfolded in an excruciatingly painful way due to how the game got away.

In the first three innings, the Gamecocks managed to make Razorback Hunter Hollan sweat a little bit, as they put the ball in play five times and managed to score one run off a solo shot by Will Tippett. The game, however, would take a drastic turn in the top of the third inning, as South Carolina, with runners on the corners, would hit into the most unfortunate double play one could imagine, as Hollan caught a screamer hit right back at him by Talmadge LeCroy and would throw out Cole Messina at third base.

From that point on, the Gamecocks were unable to make solid contact on the majority of Hunter Hollan's pitches, which led to Hollan making it to the end of the game and retiring each of the last 20 batters for South Carolina. Mark Kingston was asked about the hitting struggles after the game and conveyed he was disappointed in his team's collective approach when at the plate.

"I thought at times we just didn't do a good enough job of letting the ball get deep, making sure we saw it up, and using the opposite field," Kingston explained. "We just didn't have enough players commit to really using the whole field."

On the other side, South Carolina had a good outing from left-hander Matthew Becker, who gave up four runs in five and two-thirds innings and helped the Gamecocks stay in the game. This is a continuation of a positive trend that developed over the weekend in spite of the injuries the Gamecocks had coming into the series.

South Carolina will play their final midweek game on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM EDT against the Charlotte 49ers.

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