Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks softball regional begins, and the baseball season. Regular season comes to a close. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:55] Welcome to episode 321 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. How about that episode? Three, two, one. That's got to be some good luck. Go play the Powerball or something. I don't know. Wouldn't that be nice? That would be something. Hope you all had a great week out there. GameCocks got the PGA Championship going on.
[00:01:23] Driving distance for a lot of y' all, I'd imagine. Gonna find me there Saturday. If you see me, don't be a stranger. Come say hello. Gonna be rocking some Gamecock merch, I believe. Always got to represent, but, yeah, I hope you all had a great week. Ready to take on this weekend. Lot of action sneakily in the Gamecock sphere this weekend. A lot of. Lot of action on dime. A lot of action in Colombia. Actually. You could go and have yourself a really fun weekend in Colombia just watching softball and baseball. You could have a really nice day. Yeah, that sounds nice. Swing by.
[00:02:01] Who knows? Swing by the Gamecock Bojangles, maybe cantina. Who knows?
[00:02:08] Number of places you could go. But yeah. Hope y' all are ready for a fun weekend there. Before we jump into things, though, I have my Gamecock calendar here.
[00:02:20] To start you off with a fact today, not a piece of trivia.
[00:02:25] South Carolina's Rob Smith and Billy Bomhoff were drafted into Major League Soccer ahead of the inaugural season in 1996.
[00:02:35] Smith was drafted in the 1996 supplemental draft, and Bomhoff in the MLS inaugural player draft. How about that?
[00:02:44] Pretty cool.
[00:02:46] Yeah. Gamecock van Soccer. Shout out them. You know, it's.
[00:02:49] It's a program that had some good moments this year. Saw we just picked up a transfer player from Clemson, So take that L. Clemson. And. Yeah, Shout out. Shadow. Gamecock soccer. I saw that Stone Stadium is getting.
[00:03:03] Is getting a little bit of a shot of penicillin. Little facelift. Couple. Couple improvements. I saw. Pretty exciting. I also saw that the Gamecock athletic department has partnered with Legends. I think this is really for Williams Bryce Stadium. But to spare y' all a lot of the details, Legends is a company that handles ticket sales, fan experience, you know, stadium improvement, you know, recommendations and things of that nature for a lot of teams, not just in college, but professional as well. So some people are saying this probably means ticket prices may go up for your everyday person.
[00:03:41] It may. But I do think it's nice to have a company working with you that understands the best practices across the board and can easily look at a couple of things and say, yes, this is a problem area. Here's how we suggest to fix it. You can improve the fan experience in the south end zone by doing X. You can improve the stadium experience in the upper decks by doing Y things like that. So pretty interesting, you know, little blip on the radar as far as news goes, but nonetheless, pretty neat there. That's my, that's my sport and entertainment management major at work for y' all, knowing what Legends is. But to jump into sports here, the week in review for y' all, not a whole lot. Not a whole lot to go over. Things are really slowing down. We're in postseason play. We're in regular season finale play.
[00:04:35] School is out. And so with that, not a lot to report here. And except on Wednesday, the men's golf finished fifth overall in the regionals. And they're the entire regionals.
[00:04:48] They finished fifth and with that punched their ticket to the NCAA championship for the first time since 2019. So how about that sort of out of left field. The men's team had a fantastic regionals and are going to the NCAA Championship with a chance to play for the national title.
[00:05:08] I believe. The GameCocks were ranked 20 going into this, so, you know, living up to the billing of a ranked team. But even so, very, very impressive.
[00:05:19] Very under the radar. They kind of. And then they put it out there. But yeah, and then the women's golf team, too, you know, they had a strong end to their season. Like people are saying, you know, the, the graphic with the cocky swinging the golf club, that's on a lot of merch now. There's all the cocky merch now playing different sports. People are saying this could have been the boost South Carolina sports needed. There might be something to that. Who knows? But outside of that, the focus shifts to the Diamonds as there are a lot of action going on this weekend. So we're going to start with softball here.
[00:05:55] Postseason is here. We talked about it last episode. Really, really major accomplishment for the Carolina Gamecocks here to host a Columbia regional. So very, very cool. Postseason ball is back in Columbia. The regional starts Friday afternoon. So as a reminder for y' all, the teams are usc, Virginia, North Florida and Elon.
[00:06:22] So that's going to get started afternoon on Friday, and then it's the second game of the regional. So game two is going to take place Friday at 5:30pm with South Carolina taking on Elon.
[00:06:37] So y' all know how the regionals kind of work. It's a round robin, double elimination type of deal.
[00:06:43] So games will be played on Saturday based off of who wins the opening games, who loses it, and then you'll determine who's eliminated on Saturday.
[00:06:56] And then the winner of the regional will be played Sunday at 1pm There is a game that is, you know, if necessary, that I think will happen later on Sunday, but hopefully we're in a position to know the winner right away on Sunday. Save some stress and look, you're at home.
[00:07:18] You're, you know, coming off a great season.
[00:07:23] You don't have to play a team that's giving you fits in the SEC out of conference. This team has performed pretty darn well at home. This team has performed pretty darn well.
[00:07:37] So you don't want to put the horse or the cart before the horse here, but this team is in a position to do some really cool things here. But you have to take it one step at a time.
[00:07:51] You can't take it for granted. We've seen it on the baseball side of things, and anyone who's watched playoff anything knows that you have to take it one game at a time. But it's a really, really amazing accomplishment. The team has put out a lot of content, but if you are in Colombia or in a position to be able to go to any of these games, let's go. Let's make that effort and let's make it a real home field advantage.
[00:08:19] You know, it's just a special moment for this team, especially year one under coach Chastain. She was talking about, like this was their goal all along, that they didn't set out just to make regionals, that they set out. And they kept manifesting it internally to say, we're going to host a regional.
[00:08:42] And I think the excitement is there across our fan base, and we recognize that this has been a great season, and it's just electric. You know, this team is just good.
[00:08:53] So I'm excited for it. I'm nervous, of course, but it's going to be a lot of fun to follow along in this. And I don't know, maybe it's just my perception of it. I honestly do think this is the most excitement and the most eyes that South Carolina softball has had in a long time.
[00:09:13] You know, like, we've had some good teams who have done some good things, who have enjoyed some postseason play, but I don't know, there's just something about hosting this regional having been really consistently good all year. Like maybe not top three, four or five in the sec, but you're up there nationally ranked for what, like the whole year? Pretty much.
[00:09:38] So yeah, this is a big accomplishment. I'm really excited for this team. I'm excited to track it along and let's root them in. Let's go postseason play.
[00:09:47] Absolutely. Love it.
[00:09:50] And then, yeah, sticking with the diamond here, talking baseball, really coming to the end of the end of the line here for the Yardcocks. The guys were in action for a midweek game, the final midweek game here Tuesday night against Winthrop with the Gamecocks winning 6 to 5. And with that, there was an interesting footnote that will be on this season.
[00:10:15] South Carolina beat every mid major team it played.
[00:10:20] So with the exception of unc, this team won all the midweek games.
[00:10:27] I mean, go figure. Like that is a head scratcher if I've ever seen.
[00:10:35] You did exactly what you're supposed to do in the midweek games. And even some of these great teams that are out there, they suffer a midweek loss.
[00:10:46] Not the Carolina Gamecocks.
[00:10:49] Not the team that's having an existential crisis about its baseball program. No, no, no.
[00:10:56] We basically went undefeated in the midweek games. It's like that meme where there's the.
[00:11:02] The guy celebrating, popping the champagne and it zooms out and he's in third place.
[00:11:08] That's. That's basically South Carolina baseball with this particular stat. I mean, look, it certainly speaks to guys not quitting.
[00:11:19] It speaks to that there is still talent on this team. It speaks to, you know, there still is a threshold of being on an SEC roster that in theory you should be able to trot out there and handle your business against mid majors. So, yeah, but like I said, it's a footnote on this season because that's really not what anyone is super concerned about. Obviously the overall record and the SEC record is what people remember. And where did you end up at the end of the season type of deal? So very interesting. But back to this game here. The Gamecocks were playing from behind for most of this game, but thanks to a big five run eighth inning, the guys came out on top. Jackson Souci got the start in a no decision. Zach Russell got the win in relief.
[00:12:09] Player highlights from this one, Bo Hollins, one for four with three. Ribby's KJ Scobie went two for three.
[00:12:18] Up next for the Gamecocks is the final regular season series. How about that?
[00:12:25] As this season, maybe somewhat mercifully, is coming to an end here.
[00:12:33] Final regular season.
[00:12:35] Final regular season series, huh? How about that? Been a long season.
[00:12:40] I think it's been a long season for a lot of us here. And you're not sitting in a position that I think anyone would have expected to at the start of the year. In here, the Gamecocks are welcoming the top ranked LSU Tigers to Founders Park. So what a way to go out with a bang here.
[00:13:00] LSU is 4012 overall going into this series. They are also 17 and 10 in conference and are eyeing a potential top seed, the NCAA Tournament. I mean, just look at that record. Whoo. Could you imagine?
[00:13:16] Must be nice.
[00:13:18] Must be nice. But this series is already underway when y' all are listening to this. So things getting started on Thursday.
[00:13:25] So this piece here going to be a little dated here, but the pitching rotation, Ashton Crowther, Jake McCoy and then TBA for the Gamecocks. So now I've talked at nauseam about this series, excuse me, about the season, but with this series here bringing the official end of the regular season, it's definitely going to bring a time of reflection and it's going to be a time of big decisions on the part of the administration.
[00:13:58] Jeremiah Donati, Paul Manneri, I think there's going to be decisions on his part.
[00:14:04] There's going to be decisions by a lot of the players.
[00:14:08] You know, I mean, coaching changes can bring departures and early draft entries and things like that, regardless. But when you put on top of it a disappointing, underwhelming season.
[00:14:24] Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of decisions to be had when this season concludes. We'll still have the SEC tournament. That changed with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma. So I think some people were still remembering where it wasn't necessarily that everyone makes that.
[00:14:43] It'll be a first round game for South Carolina. There's certainly not going to be any buys involved. And then we'll see. We'll see what that happens. We'll see what goes from there. I'll obviously bring you all up to speed on that next episode in terms of seating and opponents and things like that. So it will be interesting to track that along. But look, let's see if the guys can fight in this series, huh?
[00:15:08] I mean, it's the final series. You're gonna have Senior Day. There's gonna be a couple other guys going out there, you know, like they need to be celebrated. This season went sideways and down ways in every other ways you can think of, but these players still need to be celebrated.
[00:15:28] And I think that this season went so poorly just because it was a.
[00:15:34] It's like a series of unfortunate events, right? Injuries played a big role.
[00:15:39] Maybe the culture is a little different.
[00:15:42] Lack of pitching depth and whatnot. Like, there's a lot of things that went sideways, and I think the coaching change maybe didn't stick.
[00:15:50] You know, there could be some messaging that's not landing. So regardless, these kids still went out there every day. It's tough being a student athlete. They love South Carolina. They chose to come here. They chose to play here.
[00:16:05] Let's celebrate these kids. So if, again, if you have the opportunity to go to Founders park this weekend, it's a nice day at the ballpark, right?
[00:16:15] Go give these kids some support.
[00:16:17] Root them in. Let's see if they can fight. And who knows, you know, who knows? Wouldn't that be a fun way to end the season with putting up a really good fight against LSU? I think. I think I saw Jackie Bradley Jr. Is gonna be on the call for ESPN. So that's pretty neat.
[00:16:35] Back in Founders park, back in Columbia.
[00:16:38] Really, really cool there. But, yeah, so we'll see how it goes.
[00:16:42] But with that, y' all, quick episode here 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.
