BATON ROUGE — South Carolina’s Zac McCamie fired a complete-game three-hitter Saturday to lead the Gamecocks past LSU, 5-1, at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU fell to 23-10 overall and 5-6 in league play. For the first time since 1995, LSU dropped its third straight Southeastern Conference series. In 1995, LSU closed out the regular season with league series losses to Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State.
The Gamecocks (27-5, 7-4) wrapped up their first-ever series win at Alex Box Stadium, and it was only the second time the SEC East foe had won a regular-season series against LSU.
The Tigers will try to salvage a win in the series finale at Noon on Sunday. Junior left-hander Greg Smith (4-1, 2.98) will take to the mound against South Carolina right-hander Aaron Rawl (5-2, 2.80).
McCamie (7-1) followed up Jason Fletcher’s performance on Friday night with a three-hit masterpiece, allowing one run in a season-high nine innings of work. The Tigers were unable to take advantage of five walks, also a season-high for the senior right-hander.
“We didn’t even hit balls hard,” said head coach Smoke Laval. ” They (the players) are putting the pressure on themselves. We just have to fight our way through it.”
Sophomore Clay Dirks (7-1) suffered his first loss of the season, allowing five runs (three earned) on eight hits, walking two and striking out three.
Clay Harris had one of the three singles with an RBI hit in the fifth, leading to LSU’s lone run. Michael Hollander saw his hitting streak come to an end at 10 games after an 0-for-2 day.
The Gamecocks were led at the plate by Steve Pearce, who was 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBI.
Chris Brown led off the South Carolina first inning with a walk and later scored on Pearce’s two-out single.
Two defensive errors by LSU in the field proved to be costly. The first of the miscues came in the second as Dirks fielded a groundball off of Brown and overthrew Will Harris at first. The ball caromed into right field, allowing Davy Gregg to score.
The Gamecocks extended their lead to 3-0 in the third on a line drive homer over the left field wall by Pearce.
After McCamie held LSU hitless through 5.1 innings, Quinn Stewart broke the dry spell with a one out single to centerfield in the fifth. Clay Harris then cut into the deficit with his RBI single two batters later.
It was all the Tigers could muster offensively against McCambie, who retired 11 of the next 13 batters to secure his seventh win.
South Carolina 5, LSU 1 (Apr 09, 2005 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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South Carolina…… 111 002 000 – 5 9 0 (27-5, 7-4 SEC)
LSU………………… 000 010 000 – 1 3 2 (23-10, 5-6 SEC)
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Pitchers: South Carolina – McCamie, Z.. LSU – Dirks; English(7).
Win-McCamie, Z.(7-1) Loss-Dirks(7-1) T-2:11 A-7475
HR SC – Pearce, S. (9).
Game notes:
Actual attendance: 4,049