BATON ROUGE — Fourth-ranked South Carolina scored in each of the first four innings and held on for a 7-5 win, completing an SEC series sweep of No. 6 LSU in the weekend finale at Alex Box Stadium on Sunday.
The Tigers (23-11, 5-7) are in sixth place in the SEC Western Division. The Gamecocks (28-5, 8-4) are tied for first overall in the conference.
South Carolina became the first team to sweep LSU at Alex Box since Arkansas took three games from the Tigers last season. Entering the weekend, the Gamecocks had never won a series in Baton Rouge.
LSU will try to break its three-game losing skid in a home mid-week contest versus Northwestern State at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. South Carolina travels to Clemson on Wednesday.
Senior Aaron Rawl (6-2) tossed 6.2 innings on Sunday to notch the win. The right-hander scattered eight hits, allowed two runs, walked one and struck out six.
LSU junior Greg Smith (4-2) worked 3.2 innings — his shortest starting outing of the season — and was touched for four runs (three earned) on five hits. He walked one and struck out one.
Two of the Tigers’ five runs came via solo homers by Dustin Weaver and Gill.
“Our offensive approach was better today,” said head coach Smoke Laval. “Here again, we are trying not to judge it as a win or loss. We just need to get better offensively. We had to get better at some phase of the game offensively today. Finally, we did. We are trying to get rid of that negative type focus.”
Derek Hebert went 3-for-4 at the plate, including an RBI single in the eighth. Chris Jackson, making the first start of his career, had two hits and an RBI.
“We hit a lot of balls hard today at people,” said Jackson. “All and all, we played a lot better today than the last few games. We need to keep working hard by staying on top of the ball and not hitting as many pop-ups. We need more line drives and hard ground balls.”
Just as it did on Saturday, a leadoff walk would come into score and give the Gamecocks a 1-0 lead after the first. The Tigers had a chance to turn a double play and end the inning, but Gill’s throw to second pulled Jackson off of the bag. Steve Pearce, who was 3-for-5, took advantage of the miscue and lined an RBI single through the left side.
Meanwhile, the LSU offense continued its weekend struggles, collecting only two hits heading into the fifth inning. Weaver sparked the Tigers to their first run, sending a line drive solo homer over the left field wall to start the fifth.
Hebert followed with a single, marking the first time LSU collected back-to-back hits all weekend. Rawl then forced Will Harris to ground into a double play.
A two-out rally in the frame, starting with Gill’s double to the right field gap would cut the deficit in half at 4-2. Jackson delivered with his second hit of the day, grounding a clutch opposite field RBI single to plate Gill.
Jason Determann seemed to feed off of the momentum, retiring the first nine batters he faced after relieving Smith in the fourth.
Rawl eclipsed the 100-pitch mark in the seventh, but finished his outing strong, striking out Gill and yielding to reliever Jeff Jeffords.
With two outs and a runner at second, Jeffords retired Jackson to leave a runner in scoring position.
Another leadoff walk to start the eighth proved to be costly. Determann walked Steven Tolleson, and Pearce followed it up with his second hit of the day, lining a double into the left field gap to score Tolleson from first.
The Tigers mounted a comeback in the eighth, plating two runs but leaving the tying run on second. Three consecutive hits to start the inning, including Clay Harris’ RBI single, chased Jeffords.
Despite surrendering a run-scoring single to Hebert, closer Brent Marsh retired three of the four batters he faced in the frame to preserve a 6-4 lead.
South Carolina added an insurance run in the ninth on Michael Campbell’s second homer of the game.
Gill refused to go down without a fight, tagging his fourth homer of the season to start the home half of the ninth. After Jackson reached on an error, Marsh was aided by some good fortune as both Ryan Patterson and Nick Stavinoha lined out. Marsh then caught Clay Harris looking to end the game for his second save of the weekend.
South Carolina 7, LSU 5 (Apr 10, 2005 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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South Carolina…… 111 100 021 – 7 10 3 (28-5, 8-4 SEC)
LSU………………… 000 020 021 – 5 13 3 (23-11, 5-7 SEC)
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Pitchers: South Carolina – Rawl, A.; Jeffords, J.(7); Marsh, B.(8). LSU – Smith, G.; Determann(4); Faircloth(9).
Win-Rawl, A.(6-2) Save-Marsh, B.(7) Loss-Smith, G.(4-2) T-2:48 A-7198
HR SC – Campbell, M. 2 (6); Paxton, I. (2).
HR LSU – Gill (4); Weaver (4).
Actual attendance: 3,013
Jeffords, J. faced 3 batters in the 8th.