Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, Brandon Stone throws a complete game as baseball wins a series, women's golf is SEC champs, and the spring game discussion. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:56] Okay. Welcome to episode three, 314 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope you all had a great weekend out there. Gamecocks. Happy Easter to those who celebrated. Was absolutely gorgeous here. Just couldn't have asked for a picture perfect Easter Sunday with candy, brunch, pastels, spring. It's great, it's great. But hope, yeah, hope you all had a great weekend. Packed weekend from a Gamecock point of view. Packed weekend from a sports point of view. You got NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, lot going on all of a sudden. So yeah, hope y'all had a busy weekend and are ready to attack this week. Got a good amount to go over with y'all today. Some exciting things. You know, there was a good amount of action of Gamecock sports and Gamecock wins that we have to go over here. But before I jump into that, we have my handy dandy Gamecock calendar here to start off your weekend. It's not a trivia today, it's actually just a fact. So let's see what we got here.
[00:02:16] John Abraham played 15 seasons in the NFL, was a first team All Pro three times and appeared in five Pro Bowls after logging 23 and a half sacks during his Gamecock career. Shout out. John Abraham, yeah, had a fantastic pro career and sort of the precursor to the modern era of Gamecock. D lineman. It feels like almost where, you know, you went on a good run for a little bit and you are still seeing it now. So yeah, we have been blessed as Gamecocks to have had some pretty good D linemen come through our program and hopefully under the direction of Sterling Lucas, Clayton White, Shane Beamer, that really only continues. And I guess you know, now that we're talking about the NFL, it's the NFL draft this week. So a big, big moment in young athletes lives, football players lives. But we got a few Gamecocks that we are definitely keeping our eye out on. Nick Amenwauri. More and more mock drafts. I see him going in the first round. He certainly is the first round. Talent and ability. I think a team would be smart to snag him in that mid late first round if you are in need of safety help. TJ Sanders, is he someone that goes early, you know, maybe might not crack that first round? Maybe. Maybe at the very end, someone trades back up. But is he a second rounder? Third rounder, Kyle Kennard, of course. Rocket Sanders, you know, do we see someone. Tonka Hemingway. Does Kai Kroger get drafted? I mean. Oh, just the list goes on and it. Man, you. You make sure realize why we were so damn good last year. Like, just NFL talent across the board, my goodness. But we'll definitely bring y'all up to speed about where everyone goes, even though I'm sure it's going to be blasted on social media. But, yeah, best of luck to all those guys. Wherever y'all go, that team will be very lucky to have you. You'll have a well coached player. Player that's ready to take that next step and. Yeah, very exciting. Very exciting. Man, it would be so sick to have Nick and Man Warri on my team. Just put a blank. Just like it would be good to have Nick and Man Warrior on blank team. Whether that's my team, you know, or if you're a. Whatever fan. Like, it would just be such a fun jersey to have. It'd be such a fun thing to be able to watch these guys, like, from Saturday just to Sunday. But, yeah, fantastic. Fantastic stuff, but. All right, let's jump into a weekend recap here. Got a lot to go over here, but I'm going to kick things off with the biggest news here, is that our women's golf team, on Friday, they beat Florida 35 and a half to one and a half. They had previously beaten, I believe it was Tennessee. But all that to be said, women's golf team won the sec. They are SEC champions. You'll remember they set a record in the stroke play section of the tournament. It ended up paying dividends as they were the number one seed going into match play. Ended up winning. And your Gamecock women's golf team are SEC champions. So shout out to that team. I mean, they were clearly good all along. You know, we followed them here. In these little recaps, we would see wins, but you went into the tournament fourth, I believe. And then you set the course record. Excuse me. You set the tournament record and you set yourself up for success. And it pays off. So shout out to the women's golf team. SEC champions. Bringing some hardware home. Absolutely. Love to see that. Add it to the trophy case. And I guess that's.
[00:06:15] Is that Jeremiah Donati's first SEC championship? It might be. I know, I know. Equestrian was in the mix, but yeah, that might be. So shout out women's golf team. We'll always remember that.
[00:06:27] And then also on Friday, men's tennis was an action. They beat Florida 4 to 1. Beach volleyball was an action. They beat FGCU 4 to 1 and also beat Georgia State 4 to 1. And then speaking of equestrian, they lost to SMU 15 5. I do believe that ends their season. But shout out to equestrian. They themselves had had a nice season as well. Softball was in action on Saturday. They whooped Kentucky 14 1. That's great to see. Beach volleyball in action Saturday as well. They beat Jacksonville five nothing. And men's tennis was in action Saturday as they beat Mississippi State 4 3.
[00:07:16] Softball was in action Sunday. They beat Kentucky 1 nothing. And men's tennis lost to Texas 4 to 1. So a lot of action that was going on there. Really cool to see softball continuing to roll there. That's a big bounce back after that tough outing against Clemson not too long ago. But to go up to Kentucky and absolutely dominate, that is certainly impressive there. And then if we're going to stick on the diamond here, the name of the weekend, frankly, is Brandon Frickin Stone. Stoney. As the baseball team was in action this weekend, continuing a homestand against Ole Miss. And I don't need to rehash or set the stage here. We know that SEC play has, quite frankly, just been bad for the Gamecocks this year. It has been a struggle. So the Gamecocks were in action this weekend. Really weak, I should say. As this series started on Thursday night at Founders, the Gamecocks got the win 3 to 2. So not a lot to write home about offensively, but it was the pitching that was the headline of this. This game here as Brandon Stone got the win in a complete game, going nine innings, giving up just six hits and two runs on four strikeouts. He was dialed. He was absolutely dialed. And it was so cool to see. I mean, 86 pitches.
[00:08:58] A complete game on 86 pitches. It's just so efficient. No walks. It was just really cool to see. You know, he didn't really even get himself in a lot of jams. Was just efficient letting the ball get into play, letting the defense behind him do its job. You had a couple of big double plays late in the game to keep him going there, but wow, what an effort, you know, I mean, there's a lot to unpack here, frankly.
[00:09:32] You know, like, pitching has been really hot and cold. Really, for the most part, cold for this team. Finding someone to be dominant in that starting rotation, especially against SEC competition, has been a problem. It has been. Or we've had games where you'll get a couple of good innings out of the starter, and then there's just one bad one where things go sideways and the bullpen can struggle to stop the bleeding. And before you know it, the game has just gotten out of hand.
[00:10:05] Not this one. Brandon Stone, like, the efforts like this don't come along often, especially now, nowadays in baseball. So shout out to him and I'm gonna get into this here. But, you know, we won this series and this effort that Brandon Stone had, like, don't we get caught up in narratives a lot as fans? And we love our baseball program and, you know, we made a coaching change because the consistency wasn't there, the level of postseason success wasn't there. And you have a new coach, a new era now. And it hasn't gone according to plan, frankly.
[00:10:52] And a lot of people have been down in the dumps about this program.
[00:10:57] I've been critical of it this year.
[00:11:00] But I think sometimes we forget that there's still student athletes on this team who eat, sleep and breathe this sport.
[00:11:09] And these guys committed to South Carolina baseball, whether that's because of the weight that that maybe once had, or it's because they grew up watching it, or they believe in the direction of the program that it was going.
[00:11:26] They committed to this school, they committed to this program, and they want to win.
[00:11:33] You know, and when you see efforts like this, it goes to show that they're still fighting this team and they're still fighting that dugout.
[00:11:43] And for Brandon Stone to go and throw a complete game, and it just. I think it gave the fans, I think it gave the players, it just. Everyone who has a vested interest in this program, it gave us a little juice, a little jolt.
[00:12:01] That, yes, maybe this season hasn't gone according to plan and this season has had some rough moments, but there's still reason to root for this team.
[00:12:13] And baseball is a funny game where, you know, you may be having a tough season, but you can have a fantastic effort in a game and look all sec.
[00:12:26] So shout out Brandon Stone because, you know, really gave us something to cheer for on Thursday night, which is something that we've been lacking. So that there's just awesome. Really, really cool. So that's. That's the highlights there, but player highlights here. Nathan hall, he continues to rake 2 for 4 with 1 RBI. And then. Then you had. Ethan Petrie had a tough game in this one, Boholin's one for three. So again, you win the game three to two. Not a ton of offensive output. Ole Miss, they themselves in this game had a really strong effort from their pitching staff.
[00:13:03] They had their starter come in, who he was, he was good. This guy, this guy, Hunter Elliott, you know, he ends up taking the loss, gave up the three runs, and they bring this guy, Mason Morris, who they say is like their dude apparently, but. So it was a one, two punch and this guy Morris comes in relief and really shuts down the Gamecocks for half the game. So it was those three runs that you got early that ended up being the difference maker because Stoney was able to shut him down. So really, really cool. Which brings us to Friday, where Carolina got the win and got the series win.
[00:13:44] Just like that, you know, you win 7 to 2. Friday afternoon at Founders was just a fun day. You got the party started early, getting some offense, winning, getting three runs in the first, tacking on a couple in the middle innings, and then two insurance runs late in the eighth.
[00:14:07] Just a nice overall showing. Jake McCoy was able to get the win in this one. He himself had a good effort here, got the win going six and a third, allowing three hits, one earned run and seven strikeouts. Caleb Jones and Ashton Crowther finish things up. Crowther getting the save there. Player highlights from the GameCocks. Nathan Hall 2 for 3 with 3. Ribby's Ethan Petrie 2 for 4, and then Jace Royda 1 for 1 with 1 Ribby. He kind of got the party started early on in the game there. And then Sunday, we're not going to talk about Gamecocks lose Siri or lose the game. Excuse me, 12 to 2 in a run rule game. We're just not going to worry about that today, though, because the Gamecocks had a really good effort out there, won the series, which is something that has eluded us in SEC play so far against an Ole Miss team. That's pretty good.
[00:15:06] So you know what?
[00:15:08] We're sitting here in Late April.
[00:15:12] Season hasn't gone exactly according to plan again. But this is why you continue to trot out there, because you had a really good showing.
[00:15:22] You won the series at home in front of the home fans, and you live to fight another day. So, I mean, really shout out to the fantastic effort that Brandon Stone had there. I think it really did jolt the team into that win. Up next for the baseball team, Tuesday evening at home, midweek game against unfolding. So let's continue to get some production. Let's continue to have good starting pitching efforts. If you can have whoever starts that midweek game go deep into the six, let's say seven innings, maybe Continue to get length from the starters.
[00:15:59] Maybe you get a little momentum here at the end of April. Who knows? Who knows? But. All right, that's the Yardcocks there. And then we'll wrap things up here with a spring game discussion here. You know, I've told y'all before, I'm not an expert. I'm not trying to be. I'm your average fan. I was not able to make it to Columbia this Friday night.
[00:16:21] Had places I need to be, but I sure would have loved to watch it on tv. And I knew it wasn't on tv. In the back of my mind, I remember them saying that. But to my surprise, to actually go on all of the avenues and find out that it is not in fact on TV just sucks.
[00:16:43] I mean, I know somewhere out there, Shane Beamer said there's reasons to it, and you gotta reward the people who go out there and watch the game. You know, like you want to make it a really good environment. Like it's a selling point for recruits. It's a point of pride for the players to have lot of people in the stands for the spring game. I had a good buddy of mine who was there, and he said it was. He said it was a really legitimate good crowd, and he was sitting on the upper deck and he said the lower half was damn near full.
[00:17:20] So I get that.
[00:17:22] But for those of us that can't be there, you got to put it on at some point. I mean, there's no way that it's for the tape of it all for other other teams. So what I had to do was I had to piece things together between a few articles and the clips that the team posted. So, unfortunately, I don't have a ton of insight for y'all here, but from what I've heard, it was your typical spring game where it wasn't super enthralling. It was pretty vanilla. And the way that our team does it, which I think is a lot of fun, where they have the draft where it's not the best defense versus the best offense, so on and so forth, it's a mix and match. So I think that does a couple of things. You don't necessarily get to see your potential depth chart. You don't get to see guys playing alongside their normal counterparts, particularly on the offensive line. I think you had Air Noland and Lenora Sellers on the same team, so that's a little interesting. But with that being said, I put before the game some things I was looking to see, and I think reading, at least, you Got some answers. You know, I think you have a few of these freshman wide receivers who are looking the part. Of course they're going to have to be polished a little bit, but Malik Clark made a great grab. Brian Rowe had a good game. Lex Cyrus has the speed as advertised.
[00:18:51] Not necessarily a freshman, but Van Dravis Jacobs, I heard had a nice game, got a little banged up. I haven't seen that the extent of that. Hopefully not too bad defensive line.
[00:19:05] I don't think we got a ton of answers on maybe the Edge, but I think we saw some.
[00:19:11] I don't know what the word is here. We saw some more definitive dudes in the middle and the defensive tackle position. Monkel Goodwine, I think had a good game from what I've seen. He needs to step up and have a big role in this offense. The defensive backfield I think looks elite from, from what I've heard. I think that that's going to be the strength of the defense. You got to find someone who can compliment Dylan Stewart. But I think if you get pressure via Stewart and it's maybe by committee opposite him, there's a lot of defensive tackles in the portal that this team needs to go after. You need to get at least one more veteran defensive tackle to add depth to that rotation. But I expect some coverage sacks if you will. Nor what I heard looked. Looked good. See say that these. These newcomers here looked the part. Kilgore looked good. So it's going to be interesting to see that rotation. But I think that Taurean Gray and Clayton White have.
[00:20:13] Have a plethora of talent to choose from.
[00:20:18] And then on the offensive line. Yeah, I think reports were that it was spotty, but I think you had guys playing differently because of the draft. You know, Tree was at on the right tackle position for some of the night, but when anything you read, he's been left guard during spring. So I think it's just a deal where the staff used it as an opportunity of coaching and it is a scrimmage at the end of the day, like, hey, we need to develop you guys to be able to be multiple along the line and things like that. But. And then Cutter woods apparently cutting it up.
[00:20:55] Young quarterback maybe to look forward to. Who knows. Really cool. So yeah, unfortunately I wish I had more in depth talking points for y'all here. But you know, I'm piecing it together from a few articles I read, a few highlights that I seen, things like that. All told, I think it was a productive spring for South Carolina. A lot of development going on. A lot of development still has to happen in a few positions, defensive tackle being one of them. That comes to mind. Running back you have to continue to bring along, but it was a good spring. Let's see what this team does in the portal, bringing in maybe some help along that defensive line. Maybe you bring in a little bit more on the offensive line as well. Linebacker perhaps, but nonetheless, productive spring. And with that, y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecox. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'all. Go Cox.
