South Carolina, Clemson avoid bulletin board material ahead of rivalry clash
Mark Kingston wasn’t going to be baited.
Meeting with reporters Thursday ahead of this weekend’s rivalry series with Clemson, the South Carolina baseball coach was asked about his star hitter, junior Wes Clarke, and how he thought the Tigers might approach pitching to him in the three-game set. The opportunity was right there to quip about how no one has managed to slow down Clarke, who has hit six home runs and slugged 2.308 in four games.
Instead, Kingston flashed a knowing smile.
“You are really trying to get some bulletin board material out of me today,” he cracked.
And then his standard response to the question: “Wes Clarke is a quality hitter, they’re a quality pitching staff and, again, it’ll be really fun to watch these matchups.”
Kingston isn’t the only one going out of his way to not publicly talk trash or place even more emphasis on the rivalry series, always one of the most heated in college baseball. His Clemson counterpart, Monte Lee, was asked whether this year would be even more intense than usual, given that this is the first high-profile meeting between the Gamecocks and Tigers this season after the annual football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball games weren’t played because of COVID-19.
“To be honest with you, I haven’t even thought about that. I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any more weight on it because of the football and basketball situation,” Lee said. “It’s always a big deal.
“It’s always a series that the state of South Carolina, the fans in our state from both schools, they look forward to this weekend. The players look forward to this weekend, the coaches look forward to this weekend. It’s the greatest rivalry in college baseball in my opinion, so we always look forward to it.”
That public-facing attitude has trickled down to players, too. Clemson veteran Kier Meredith said he would emphasize to his younger teammates to treat the rivalry as another series. And South Carolina senior George Callil echoed that sentiment nearly exactly.
“With this series, we’ll all very excited. We’re not going to treat it any differently than we have this first week, but obviously that rivalry is there and we’re going to go out there and do our best like we do each week,” Callil said.
Still, there’s no denying how important the series is to many across the state. And both coaches, knowing that, made a commitment to preserving it in 2021, Kingston said.
There’s also a good chance of rain in Clemson on Friday night. If the contest is washed out, Kingston said the two teams will look to make it up later in the season on an open date.
Should that happen, though, both teams will be at radically different points in their seasons. Because the ACC expanded its conference schedule due to COVID-19 protocols, this series was moved up a week. That means neither team has played more than a handful of games. In terms of identity, neither has established one that’s guaranteed to last a full season. And that could make this weekend a little muddled.
“I think you’ll see two teams that don’t know quite as much about each other or themselves as you normally would,” Kingston said. “ ... I think we all need to remember that. I think they’ve tweaked their rotation already going into this weekend compared to last week, and we’ll have lineup things that we look at throughout the course of the year. In week two, you don’t have it all figured out, whether it’s us or them.”
SOUTH CAROLINA-CLEMSON BASEBALL 2021
Who: No. 17 South Carolina (4-0) vs. Clemson (3-0)
When: 4 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Friday — Doug Kingsmore Stadium, Clemson
Saturday — Fluor Field, Clemson
Sunday — Founders Park, Columbia
Watch: Streaming online on ACC Network Extra on Friday, SEC Network Plus on Saturday and Sunday
