The South Carolina Gamecocks have looked for a winner for quite some time. A new era has dawned in Columbia with head coach Paul Mainieri at the helm.
This new era excites the 67-year-old Mainieri as he seems ready to get back to coaching in Columbia.
“I feel born again honestly. It has been so exciting for me and I have loved every second of being in Columbia.”
Mainieri has had success everywhere he’s been. He made the NCAA tournament in nine of his 12 seasons at Notre Dame and took the Fighting Irish to the College World Series in 2002.
More notably, Mainieri won four regular-season SEC championships at LSU and six tournament titles, going to Omaha five times and winning it all in 2009. His career mark in Baton Rouge was an impressive 641-283-3, with a 242-175-3 mark in league regular-season games.
Not long after Maineri’s national title, it was the Gamecocks, under Ray Tanner—the main who hired Mainieri—who were at the pinnacle of the college baseball world. Carolina won national titles in 2010 and 2011 and came within a game of a third before losing to Arizona in 2012.
The latter was Tanner’s last season. The Gamecocks haven’t made Omaha since. Now, the Gamecocks their hopes to a guy who’s done it before to get them back there, though he’ll need to do it with just 14 returning players.
“I feel born again, honestly,” Mainieri says to Southeastern 16. “I’ve loved every second I’ve been here in Columbia. We’ve got some pretty good ballplayers. I think we’ve going to be a little bit underrated going into the season.
“But there’s such a nice group of kids, too. I mean, I just really enjoyed going to the field every day. And we’ve got a beautiful park. As I sit here in my office, I have big picture windows looking out over the field.
“And it almost feels surreal, like a dream, like any second now, my mother’s going to pinch me and tell me it’s time to wake up and go to school. But I’m just really grateful to be here and loving it and loving being back out on the field working with the guys.”
THE LINEUP
The headliner is Ethan Petry, the No. 29 prospect for the coming draft according to MLB Pipeline. Petry, who’s hit .341/.471/.686, with 44 home runs and 128 RBIs in two years, has a chance to go down as one of the league’s all-time greats with another year like his first two. He’s played first, third and right at Carolina, seen time in left in summer ball and will play outfield and first this year.
“When Ray Tanner offered me the job here, and I accepted it but nobody knew about it, the first phone call I made was to Ethan Petry,” Tanner said. “I wanted to make sure that he was still in the fold with us. And I was just so impressed by him right from the start when I talked to him. Just very mature, loves South Carolina. I don’t think he would have considered leaving South Carolina, to be honest with you.
“And his whole attitude reminds me so much of Dylan Crews when I had Dylan. … Even though he’s got great talent and is the best player on your team, he’s very humble and is very team-oriented. … And it’s wonderful when your best player is such a team guy. You know he’s out there busting his read end every day. Everybody’s got to follow suit if the best player on the team is working hard.”
Mainieri added that Petry had worked out at third under his watch and could play there if needed.
However, Petry will start the year at first base instead of right field because of some domino effects stemming from an injury to Nolan Nawrocki, a transfer from Clemson, who spent a lot of the fall injured after hurting his knee running into a wall while playing defense. He may not be ready to start the season but will be a big part of Carolina’s lineup once he is.
“He [Nawrocki] was well on his way to winning the starting job at second base. We’d started him out at third base for a while. … He’s as physical a kid as we have on our team. This kid is Adonis. I mean, he’s strong, and he can hit the ball hard.”
Another Clemson transfer who will play a big role is Nathan Hall, who will likely be Carolina’s opening-day center fielder.
“I think Nathan Hall is going to be really special,” Mainieri says. “I’m captivated by his athleticism. He hits the ball as hard as anybody…he runs as fast as anybody. .. I could tell right away, this kid hits the ball as hard as anybody we have on the team. He’s got as much power as anybody. He runs as fast as anybody. He’s a tools-y guy. … He reminds me of a player that I had many years ago at LSU by the name of Jacoby Jones. Jacoby played second base for us and then played center field in the Major Leagues. … And when he puts it all together, I think he could be something special.”
Mainieri hinted at Hall being a top-of-the-order-type of player.
Henry Kaczmar comes in from Ohio State as a premier transfer. He batted .325 a season ago with an on-base percentage of .422.
“Henry Kaczmar reminds me an awful lot of one of the last shortstops I had at LSU by the name of Josh Smith,” Mainieri told GamecocksOnline. “Josh just won the Silver Slugger with the Texas Rangers. Henry is a left-handed hitter, and he’ll bat near the top of the order. He’s going to be a really good all-around player for us.
KJ Scobey is who Mainieri said would play at third base once he was healthy. He is a freshman infielder and was a top-50 player from the state of Florida.
Rounding out the starting infield is catcher Talmadge LeCroy, a career .261/.403/.360 hitter over 618 plate appearances for the Gamecocks, who begins his his fourth year on campus. “I’ve seen a very enthusiastic, energetic kid, who loves to play baseball, and he did a really god job behind the plate this fall,” Mainieri told GamecocksOnline.
Hall will be flanked by a pair of returnees who transferred in under former coach Mark Kingston.
Kennedy Jones is a career .341/.422/.563 hitter with 34 home runs over 803 plate appearances. He spent two years as a regular at UNC Greensboro before coming to Columbia. He’ll likely play left field or DH.
“I challenged him in the fall. I said I heard you hit home runs when it doesn’t matter…bit lit a fire under him.”
Blake Jackson is another returning outfielder much like Jones. He had a great first season in Columbia after transferring in from Charlotte and is a career .278/.435/.431 hitter with 11 home runs spanning 535 plate appearances.
St. Mary’s transfer Dalton Mashore hit .274/.362/.490 with 23 home runs and 46 steals over 614 plate appearances there. He played all three positions at St. Mary’s, but spent all 56 of his games there last year in center.
Returnee Evan Stone has hit .204/.359/.277 over 266 career plate appearances at South Carolina and could see some time.
“Evan Stone played terrific in the fall and is probably the best outfielder on our team,” Mainieri says.
“He’s a hard-nosed guy,” Mainieri told Gamecocks Online. “He can bunt and he can run.”
Will Tippett can also find some time playing along the infield. He is a career sub-.200 hitter and the batting numbers will look to improve in 2025. He’d have played first if not for the Nawrocki injury, and should open the season as the starter at second because of that.
He won’t have a role right away due to Petry’s presence, but Mainieri likes what he sees from freshman infielder Beau Hollins.
“Beau’s going to be a really good player,” Maineri says. “Beau is a premier defensive player at first base. He looks the part. Left-handed, six-four, good athlete, he has really good skills around the bag picking up the ball and footwork and so forth. His hitting was a little bit behind about the first half of the fall and then he picked it up the second half of fall practice. He was much, much better.”
Texas A&M transfer Max Kaufer will be the backup catcher. He hit .250/.516/.500 over 32 plate appearances for the Aggies last year.
Mainieri points out that the Gamecocks lack lefty bats, possibly opening time for JUCO transfer Jase Woita who hit .427/.560/.798 with 11 homers last season while walking 36 times to 11 strikeouts at Kansas City Community College.
THE PITCHING
A good number of arms return from last year’s staff, though they haven’t always been healthy.
“The unusual thing about the pitching staff starting the fall was having so many guys that were injured before we even began,” Mainieri told GamecocksOnline. “(Pitching coach) Terry (Rooney) did a magnificent job of going out and recruiting some guys, and he was able to pull in some veteran guys from the transfer portal. The other thing is we didn’t have a lot of left handed pitching.
“So, Terry brought in Wyatt Evans (Tennessee), Jarvis Evans (Georgia), Ashton Crowther (Miami), and Aydin Palmer (Florence-Darlington Tech).”
Mainieri announced that the Gamecocks will start Dylan Eskew, Matthew Becker and Jake McCoy in their rotation to start the season.
Eskew, the crafty veteran, made a big impression on Mainieri with his development.
“When he showed up (in the fall), he wasn’t throwing real hard,” Maineiri says. “But as the fall went on, you started to see what a wonderful kid he really is. He’s tremendously dedicated and Terry Rooney, our pitching coach, just loves him. It’s like having another coach on the pitching staff and he’s an older guy and a leader.
“And then Terry’s worked with him on—there’s no secret that Dylan’s a big sinker-ball guy—where the ball is going in on right-handed hitters. But Terry has really worked with him on throwing a cutter that will break away from the right-handed hitters. And I think it might be a game-changer for him, in all honesty. He’s got a good change-up, he’s got good command, he’s a veteran guy with a lot of experience and a lot of self confidence.
“It’s not overpowering stuff, he might be 92 or 93, which is nothing to ignore. … You’re going to get a lot of ground balls on the left side of the field. … We’re feeling more and more confident that he can get left-handed hitters out as well.”
Becker is a quality southpaw who’s thrown 146 career innings with a 5.49 ERA for the Gamecocks over three years, with 199 strikeouts. He also owns six career saves.
“The guy that probably pitched the best for us all fall is Matthew Becker,” Maineiri told GamecocksOnline. “He was very cool and collected out there. He threw everything for strikes. He’s got a plus curveball. I was told he didn’t have a changeup. Well, he does now, and then he throws 93 miles an hour left-handed. Becker can be that kind of hybrid guy; where if it’s one of the first couple of games of the weekend series, and we have a chance to close out a win, I think he could be a really good ninth-inning guy.”
Mainieri hinted in January—when we talked to him—that bigger things were ahead for McCoy before he named him to the rotation in February.
“The sleeper is Jake McCoy. He probably has the best or second best arm on our staff behind Eli Jerzembeck, or maybe better then Jerzembeck,” Maineiri says. “I remember seeing a touch of 97 on the board this past fall… but he doesn’t normally pitch at that. … He’s got to be able to throw the ball where he wants it. He’s got a nice slider and a nice change-up but he’s got to be able to command that fastball. That’ll be the key for him.”
Jerzembeck’s exclusion from the rotation was a surprise based on Mainieri’s January comments but he should still have a big role. He was outstanding in 2023, firing 31 2/3 innings with 36 strikeouts, six walks and a 2.84 ERA.
“There’s a very good chance he can be our Friday night starter,” he says. “You’re talking about a guy that can pitch in the mid-90s. He’s got excellent command of his breaking ball. And he’s got unflappable self-confidence out there. This kid really believes that he can achieve great things in baseball, which is what you want.”
Jarvis Evans transfers into Columbia from the Georgia Bulldogs. His 2024 season in Athens included eight starts as he threw 47 strikeouts in 39.1 innings of work. He’s struck out 72 hitters in 60 1/3 innings at Georgia with a 5.22 ERA.
Roman Kimball is a redshirt junior who plays a big role in this pitching staff. In 2024, he held opposing batters to a .211 average. He started eight times a year ago and has a 6.07 career ERA with 74 strikeouts and 46 walks over 56 1/3 career innings between Carolina and Notre Dame.
Parker Marlatt made some great relief efforts for South Carolina last season, as he allowed just 5.5 hits per nine innings. He had a 3-0 record in 21 appearances a season ago. He is a breakout candidate entering his sophomore season.
Two more sophomores, lefty Tyler Pitzer and righty Eddie Copper, come off good debut seasons. Pitzer struck out 29% of the hitters he faced while allowing free passes 13% of the time with a 3.1% home run rate, while Copper’s numbers were 25%, 13% and 1.8%.
The aforementioned Evans and Palmer are two more lefties who can help. Evans last pitched in 2022 for Tennessee, when he struck out 22, walked three and had a 2.25 ERA over 16 innings.
Palmer struck out 29% of the hitters he faced and had a 4.18 EA over 60 1/3 innings last season.
Crowther struggled at Miami last year, allowing 2.51 runners per inning with a 7.36 ERA over 36 2/3 frames.
POTENTIAL STRENGTHS
The Gamecocks may only have 14 returning players but that number at face value is misleading because just about all of them were key contributors for a program that’s gone to back-to-back regionals. And the best of the lot is Petry, a national player of the year candidate who’s surrounded by a number of quality ones around him. It’s a lineup with high walk rates, so, the Gamecocks should make pitchers work. Carolina may not have a preseason all-SEC pitcher, but few teams in the league have the number of experienced, quality arms the Gamecocks have. Finally, the Gamecocks have a coach in Maineiri who’s won league titles, national titles, you name it.
POTENTIAL WEAKNESSES AND CONCERNS
Do the Gamecocks have enough pop past Petry? Only Mashore (13 home runs) and Woita (11) mashed double-figure home runs last year, and they weren’t exactly playing SEC-level schedules. The staff, while experienced, has had some issues with strike-throwing. Could the schedule—a weekend tilt with Clemson, road trips to Arkansas, Mississippi State and Texas A&M, all before your taxes are due—be a season-killer before the Gamecocks have a shot to establish momentum?
FINAL ANALYSIS
For a team that’s made two straight regionals—one with a megastar anchoring the lineup, one with pitching depth, one coached by a guy who’s won about as much as anyone in college baseball— the fact that Carolina was picked 14 of the league’s 16 teams by its coaches seems a bit off. Does everyone know something, or has the Gamecocks’ brand just worn off during a 12-year Omaha drought? It’s an intriguing question, and we’re betting South Carolina is better than expected and makes a regional again.
– Alfred Ezman and Chris Lee