It was a difficult weekend for head coach Mark Kingston and the South Carolina Gamecocks, getting swept by the Georgia Bulldogs in a key SEC series.
Now, with only one series left this season, South Carolina needs to finish strong, especially when considering their potential postseason future. However, as Kingston explained, it’s not necessarily a new feeling because there’s always a sense of urgency in the SEC.
“Sense of urgency is something that’s always in an SEC baseball program,” Mark Kingston said. “I wouldn’t say there’s ever not a sense of urgency, and that starts on day one of the fall. There’s always a sense of urgency. If you have to ramp that up because you had a tough weekend, then something’s wrong. We always have a sense of urgency, and the guys know that every day is to be taken advantage of. And so that never changes.”
Last weekend, South Carolina hosted Georgia for a home series and it went disastrously for Mark Kingston’s team, getting swept. In all three games, the Gamecocks gave up at least 11 runs. With that, South Carolina fell to 13-14 in SEC play, getting passed by Georgia in the process.
Things don’t get any easier from here, with South Carolina traveling to Knoxville to take on the top-ranked Tennessee Volunteers to end the regular season. After that, it’s off to Hoover for the SEC Tournament.
The hope for Mark Kingston is still to host a Regional or at least end up with a favorable draw. However, as the hosting picture gets tighter, and it now seems like more of an outside shot for the Gamecocks to host in the NCAA Tournament. It’s also currently being projected that South Carolina will be a two-seed that needs to travel for the Regional.
For now, Mark Kingston doesn’t want his team to think about that. Instead, he wants them focused on the task at hand. That’s Thursday’s game against Tennessee.
“You can’t look too far ahead, because it does you no good. You just have to try to win the next game. And if you win the next game, then you try to win the game after that. Belaboring RPIs and all that stuff, it does nothing to help you win the games,” Kingston said.
“At the end of the season, they look at your RPI, they look at your record, they look at your strength of schedule, and they decide who did enough to get there in the NCAA Tournament. So all we can do is control what we can control. And that’s to try to win baseball games and everything else is a byproduct of that.”
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