Gamecocks cruise past George Mason

GREENVILLE, N.C. — It’s been a good combination all season for South Carolina, and Friday was no different.

USC’s offense got on a roll, and starting pitcher Sam Dyson turned in seven strong innings to help the Gamecocks beat George Mason 11-3 in the Greenville, N.C., NCAA baseball regional.

The Gamecocks will play the winner of the East Carolina-Binghamton game, which was postponed until 10 a.m. today.

All nine South Carolina position starters recorded at least one hit and the Gamecocks scored eight runs in the middle innings at Clark-LeClair Stadium.

Parker Bangs, Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Nick Ebert all homered and Dyson picked up his ninth win of the season, allowing three runs on seven hits for USC (39-21).

South Carolina pounded out 17 hits and Bangs, Bradley and Bobby Haney each had three. Bangs and Haney both tied career-highs for hits.

Justin Dalles and Whit Merrifield also tallied a pair of hits apiece for the Gamecocks. George Mason’s leading hitter was Mark Hill, who went 2-for-4.

Dyson struck out five and walked four.

George Mason starting pitcher Mike Modica (11-2) went five innings and allowed six runs, four earned, on 10 hits with three walks and two strikeouts to suffer the loss.

George Mason (42-13) broke ahead 1-0 in the top of the first inning. Chris Henderson drew a one-out walk and after Scott Krieger’s single, scored on Justin Bour’s RBI double down the left-field line.

George Mason missed an opportunity to get more when Dyson got Shane Davis to ground into a 6-3 double play to end the inning.

“I thought the first inning was huge but then (Dyson) settled down and gave us some quality innings,” South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said. “He battled for us. He hasn’t really pitched well on the road but he battled for us today”

Carolina got to Modica in the bottom of the fourth, batting around to score four runs.

Bradley led off with a single and with one out advanced to second base on a fielding error by shortstop Brent Weiss. On the play, Weiss threw wide of second base in an attempt to nab Bradley and the ball went into right field, allowing Bradley to score and Andrew Crisp to advance to second base.

The Gamecocks took the lead with the next batter as Bangs launched a two-run homer to right, his fifth of the year.

Haney doubled and scored on a two-out RBI single by Merrifield to make it 4-1.

Merrifield made it 6-1 in the fifth with a two-out, RBI single up the middle to score Dalles and Bangs.

Bradley’s two-run homer in the seventh, his 10th, made it 8-1.

Bradley is now the sixth Gamecock player this year to have reached double-digit home runs.

“I was really proud of our guys for tacking on some runs in the middle innings,” Tanner said. “We had some two-out runs. Those things end up being big for you during the course of the weekend.”

After George Mason scored two in the top of the seventh, Ebert extended USC’s lead in the bottom of the inning with a solo home run, his 23rd of the year. It tied him for the second-highest season total in school history with Justin Smoak (2008) and Joe Datin (1985).

Carolina reliever Curtis Johnson hurled two innings of relief to close out the victory.

South Carolina has now opened NCAA regional action with 17 consecutive wins, a streak that started in 1984. The Gamecocks are set to start junior right-hander Blake Cooper today.