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The University of South Carolina’s baseball program is off to a hot start under new head coach Paul Mainieri – the all-time NCAA active wins leader who was tapped last spring by former athletics director Ray Tanner to reorient this once-proud program.
Mainieri, 67, of Morgantown, West Virginia won 1,505 games at four coaching stops over thirty-nine seasons prior to coming to Columbia – including five College World Series (CWS) appearances with two programs and a national championship in 2009 at LSU.
After three years away from the sport, Mainieri has the Gamecocks (8-0) coming out of the gate strong this year. Along the way, he has leapfrogged former Texas Tech coach Larry Hays to become the tenth-winningest college coach of all-time with 1,513 career wins (and the sixth-winningest coach of all-time among division one programs).
Mainieri’s team is led by junior Ethan Petry, who through eight starts is hitting .444 with a pair of homers and a team-leading nine (9) runs batted in. The Land O’ Lakes, Florida native is also slugging an astronomical .852 on the young season – also tops on the team.
Just this weekend, Petry slugged his 46th career home run as a Gamecock – just three shy of the record set by former major league All-Star Justin Smoak.
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Career homer number 46 for Pet
— Gamecock Baseball (@GamecockBasebll) February 22, 2025
? SECN+#Gamecocks | #ForeverToThee pic.twitter.com/zHcJq7D9dI
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While Petry chases history, senior Matthew Becker – a left-handed hurler from Chapin, S.C. – is pacing the pitching staff with a pair of wins in his first two starts. Becker has a minuscule 1.59 earned run average (ERA) to go with 17 strikeouts through 11.1 innings. Sophomore leftie Jake McCoy – another homegrown hero from Fort Mill, S.C. – is also causing bats to go “whiff” at an impressive clip, racking up 17 punch outs in just nine innings of work.
While Mainieri’s team has started strong, things get really difficult for the Gamecocks… really quickly. After a Tuesday tuneup at Founders Park in downtown Columbia, S.C. against Gardner-Webb, South Carolina heads to the Upstate for its annual three-game series with arch-rival Clemson – which has become known as the ‘Reedy River Rivalry.’
The Tigers (6-1) have a Tuesday tuneup against Winthrop on their home field – Doug Kinsmore Stadium in Clemson, S.C. – prior to hosting the Gamecocks in the first game of this annual, multi-locational rivalry series.
First pitch of game one is scheduled for this Friday (February 28, 2025) at 7:00 p.m. EST. After opening at Clemson, the second game of the series is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. EST at Fluor Field in Greenville, S.C. The third and final game will be held at Founders Park in Columbia, S.C. on Sunday (March 2, 2025) at 5:00 p.m. EST.
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Clemson leads the all-time series 188–145–2, and enters this week ranked No. 7 nationally, according to Baseball America. The Tigers’ bats haven’t found their power stroke just yet – mustering only a pair of home runs through seven games – but they are plating plenty of hitters thanks in large part to the work of graduate transfer Dominic Listi. Through seven starts, Listi – a Crystal Lake, Illinois native – is hitting .435 with eleven (11) runs batted in. Both of those marks lead the team.
Preseason All-American Cam Cannarella – who had a career year in 2024 with 11 home runs and 60 RBIs while hitting .337 – is off to a slow start for the Tigers so far this season, hitting just .250 with only two RBIs. The Hartsville, S.C. native – one of the fastest players in the country – is bouncing back from a shoulder injury which limited him on the base paths last season after he registered 24 steals as a freshman.
When he gets dialed in, Clemson will have one of the best five-tool prospects on the planet in the heart of their lineup.
Clemson is the first ranked opponent South Carolina will face this season – but the Tigers won’t be the last. Far from it, actually.
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South Carolina’s upcoming schedule is downright brutal – including weekend, three-game series on the road against No. 1 Texas A&M (April 10-12), at home against No. 2 Tennessee (March 28-30), at home against No. 3 LSU (May 15-17) on the road against No. 4 Arkansas (March 21-23) and at home against No. 6 Florida (May 2-4).
That’s right… five of the current top six teams in the nation are on the Gamecocks’ upcoming slate, and Mainieri’s team also has a non-conference tilt against No. 9 North Carolina scheduled for March 25 in Charlotte, N.C.. Additionally, South Carolina must play a weekend series on the road against No. 15 Mississippi State (April 4-6) and another road series against No. 23 Kentucky (April 25-27).
Obviously, national rankings will shuffle over the weeks to come, but as of this publishing that’s a whopping 25 of South Carolina’s remaining 48 games against ranked opponents – including eighteen games against programs which are currently ranked in the top ten.
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RELATED | GAMECOCKS TAP PAUL MAINIERI
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It doesn’t get any tougher than that…
Mainieri is the third baseball coach hired by Tanner after he stepped down in 2012 to become South Carolina’s athletics director. Tanner fired former head coach Mark Kingston last year after the Gamecocks were bounced from the NCAA regional. Kingston posted a 216-155 (.583) mark through seven seasons in Columbia, S.C. Prior to Kingston, Tanner’s hand-picked protégé Chad Holbrook posted a 200-106 (.654) record in five seasons at the helm of the program.
After winning national titles under Tanner in 2010 and 2011 – and reaching the CWS finals in 2012 – South Carolina has failed to advance past the super regional round for the past twelve seasons.
While we’re rooting for Mainieri to break that skid, he’s got a definitional hard row to hoe if he even intends to get in position to do so…
Who do you think will win this week’s series? Vote in our poll and post your thoughts in our always-engaging comments section below.
Who will win this year's 'Reedy River Rivalry' between South Carolina and Clemson?
BANNER VIA: GETTY IMAGES
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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