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South Carolina baseball coach Paul Mainieri has won at a historic level during his lengthy career as a collegiate coach. Among active division one coaches, no one has won more games.
But Mainieri learned the hard way over the weekend that wins in the Reedy River Rivalry are going to be difficult to come by as his Gamecocks (9-3) were swept by arch-rival Clemson in this annual series.
The sweep was Clemson’s second in a row and third in the last four years. Head coach Erik Bakich‘s Tigers (10-1) advanced to No. 5 nationally, according to the latest Baseball America rankings.
Clemson stranded a whopping 24 runners during the series – but the Tigers plated 18, with sophomore designated hitter Collin Priest driving in five runs all by himself. That included a three-run homer in the eighth inning of the third and final game of the series that blew open a close game.
Take a look…
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9??9?? came up CLUTCH?? pic.twitter.com/AcCItrRXYA
— Clemson Baseball (@ClemsonBaseball) March 3, 2025
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Dominic Listi‘s bat continued to rake for Clemson, with the graduate transfer from Crystal Lake, Illinois extending his hitting streak to eleven games. Listi is now hitting .405 on the season for Clemson with 14 runs batted in (RBIs) – both tops on the team. Preseason All-American Cam Cannarella also showed signs of life in the rivalry series, tallying four hits with four runs and three RBIs – boosting his batting average to .297 on the year.
As impressive as the Tigers’ bats were, their pitching was even better. Sophomore left-hander Justin LeGuernic and junior right-hander Joe Allen each struck out six during Sunday’s series finale, while junior Ethan Darden – a native of Rock Hill, S.C. – also fanned six during seven innings of shutout work in Saturday’s series-clinching victory at Fluor Field in Greenville, S.C.
Darden was honored with his team’s series MVP for his efforts.
The Gamecocks stranded 22 baserunners in three games against Clemson, plating only six runs. The struggles persisted even after Mainieri inserted four new starters into the lineup for Sunday’s series finale. South Carolina recorded only 15 hits during the series – while striking out 36 times. Only four of those hits came with runners on base and just two hits came with runners in scoring position.
The chickens choked in the clutch, in other words.
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“I know how much it means to South Carolina people, South Carolina fans,” Mainieri said after the game. “I feel bad that we didn’t come through for them. But there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, except for keep improving and working on the things we need to work on.”
That work had better begin in earnest. Things only get more difficult for South Carolina in the coming weeks as a brutal SEC slate begins on March 14, 2025.
The Gamecocks play three-game series against top-ranked defending national champion Tennessee (March 28-30 at home), No. 2 LSU (May 15-17 at home), No. 3 Arkansas (March 21-23 in Fayetteville), No. 6 Florida (May 2-4 at home), No. 10 Oklahoma (March 14-16 at home), No. 11 Texas A&M (April 10-12 in College Station), No. 19 Ole Miss (April 17-19 at home), No. 22 Mississippi State (April 4-6 in Starkville) and No. 23 Kentucky (April 25-27 in Lexington). Along the way, South Carolina must also travel to Charlotte for a single game against No. 7 North Carolina on March 25, 2025.
That’s a whopping 28 games against ranked opposition – including 16 games against teams currently ranked in the top ten.
As is the case in football, Clemson has a far easier row to hoe than South Carolina – with series against No. 4 Florida State (May 2-4 in Tallahassee) and No. 16 Wake Forest (March 21-23 at home) representing their only run-ins with currently ranked foes. The Tigers also host No. 9 Georgia on April 22, 2025.
Former South Carolina athletics director Ray Tanner – who coached the baseball team to a pair of national titles in 2010 and 2011 – brought in Mainieri to reorient the trajectory of the program he put on the national map fifteen years ago. His first two choices for the job certainly failed to live up to the standard he set. Former head coach Mark Kingston was fired last year after the Gamecocks were bounced from the NCAA regional. Kingston posted a 216-155 (.583) mark through seven forgettable seasons. 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.
South Carolina hasn’t been to the College World Series (CWS) since 2012, while Clemson hasn’t been since 2010. Bakich led Clemson to its first super regional appearance in fourteen years last season, while South Carolina has advanced to four super regionals in the past dozen years – losing all four.
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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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