Cody Morris Throws Five-Hitter as South Carolina Beats ECU 4-2
Cody Morris went seven and a third innings on the mound and limited ECU to a pair of runs on just five hits to go along with seven strikeouts in South Carolina's 4-2 victory Saturday night in the NCAA Regional in Greenville.
Both the Morris change up and fastball were working for him on the mound for the Gamecocks and he talked about it afterward.
“I was able to establish that pitch early for a strike and very late in the count,” said Morris, “I felt like I had pretty decent fastball command and the defense played great behind me.”
With the win, the Gamecocks advance to the championship bracket at 6 o'clock Sunday night to take on the winner of the ECU - UNC-Wilmington elimination game that will be played Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock. The Seahawks beat No. 3 seed Ohio State 4-3 in 13 innings earlier on Saturday to keep their hopes alive in the tournament.
Jonah Bride had a pair of RBI, L.T. Tolbert delivered a pair of hits and Danny Blair proved big pounding out three hits and a run to lead the Gamecocks at the plate.
South Carolina(35-24) head coach Mark Kingston was pleased with his team’s play that sent his ball club into a commanding position in this year’s regional. He talked about the decision to put in Ridge Chapman on the mound to complete the eighth inning.
“That was a no brainer for us in my opinion. They were flipping the lineup over for the fourth time. Packard had gotten three of the five hits off of Cody, so to me that was a very easy decision for me," Kingston said, "Ridge’s numbers against lefties are very good so to me that was one of the bigger innings of the game for us and Ridge did a great job getting us out of it.”
The top seed in the regional, ECU(44-17), managed to get three hits and a pair of runs from Bryant Packard but only two others managed to get a hit all evening for the Pirates.
“It was a hard fought game. South Carolina did a little more than we did. Really the difference was Morris. He kept us off balance and it was tough for us to get down 3-0 and have to fight back,” Cliff Godwin said afterward, “I thought our guys competed and played hard. I thought we laid it all on the line and that’s all you can ask for. South Carolina played a little bit better than us and that’s why they won the game.”
Bryant Packard talked about the game plan against Morris going into the game.
“We had a plan going in to not swing at it unless it was at our chest and we didn’t really do a good job of it in the beginning” Packard said, “We did a better job at the end but we’ll do better tomorrow. We had to see it up and we didn’t do a very good job of that tonight.”
An early two-RBI double down the left field line from Bride scored a pair of first inning South Carolina runs. The Gamecocks scored again on an L.T. Tolbert base hit that was bobbled by Bryant Packard in left field. That allowed Bride to score to make it 3-0.
The Pirates finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the fourth to make it 3-1 when a Spencer Brickhouse pop fly allowed Bryant Packard to score. ECU scored again in the sixth when Brickhouse was caught stealing at second base and Bryant Packard scored.
Then Jacob Olson’s double down the left field line brought Justin Row across home plate to give South Carolina some much needed insurance in the bottom of the eighth frame.
Catch the postgame press conference comments from both ECU and South Carolina along with PI Photos from Saturday night's NCAA regional contest.
