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COLUMBIA, S.C — Vanderbilt plated 10 runs in the first three innings and used a stellar outing by freshman Mike Minor on the mound to run away with a 12-1 series clinching win over No. 1 South Carolina in front of 5,569 fans Saturday afternoon at Sarge Frye Field.
Dominic de la Osa had a 3-for-3 day as the leadoff hitter, while Minor notched a career high nine strikeouts in his first SEC start. He allowed one run on five hits in seven innings of work with two walks in moving to 5-0 on the year.
The Commodores improved to 26-3 overall and 5-3 in SEC play, while the Gamecocks fell to 22-6 and 4-4 in conference play. The win marked the third straight year VU has won the regular season series and it was the seventh victory in the last nine against the Gamecocks. The 11 run differential was the highest margin for victory for Vanderbilt in the 52 game series.
“We were aggressive early offensively and wanted to take good swings,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin.” I thought Mike (Minor) did a good job of throwing strikes and not hurting himself. When people were on base, he figured out a way to shut down the inning.”
Eight of the nine Vanderbilt starters had at least one hit on the day with Jonathan White and Alex Feinberg joining de la Osa with multi-hit days with two each.
Ty Davis closed out the game with two scoreless innings of relief.
Vanderbilt jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning off of Gamecock starter Mike Cisco. Dominic de la Osa doubled to right-center and Pedro Alvarez walked to lead off the inning. Cisco struck out Ryan Flaherty before Shea Robin and Alex Feinberg came through with RBI singles with a walk to Jonathan White sandwiched in between. Ryan Davis closed out the scoring with a sacrifice fly RBI that plated Robin to make it 3-0.
South Carolina plated a run in the bottom of the first on a sacrifice fly RBI by James Darnell with the bases loaded.
The Commodores plated three more runs in the second to take a 6-1 lead. David Macias led off with a single to right and de la Osa followed with a bunt single, setting up Pedro Alvarez who plated both guys with a double down the rightfield line. Alvarez advanced to third on a passed ball and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ryan Flaherty to tally the sixth run.
VU broke the game open with four more runs in the third to knock Cisco out of the game. Alex Feinberg and Ryan Davis led off the inning with singles and advanced to second and third on a sacrifice bunt by Brad French. Cisco walked David Macias to load the bases before Dominic de la Osa lined a RBI single to left. Feinberg scored and leftfielder Robbie Grinestaff’s throw to home sailed high and away into the Commodore dugout allowing two more runs to score and also put de la Osa at third. Craig Thomas came on in relief of Cisco and allowed a sacrifice fly to center by Pedro Alvarez to make it 10-1.
Cisco (2-2) allowed 10 runs, eight earned, on 10 hits in 2.1 innings of work.
VU added two more runs on a two-run single by Ryan Flaherty in the fifth to make it 12-1.
The Commodores and Gamecocks will play the final game of the three-game set tomorrow afternoon at 12:30 p.m. CDT. Sophomore righthander Nick Christiani (5-1, 3.05 ERA) will take the hill for Vanderbilt, while South Carolina will counter with freshman righty Blake Cooper (3-0, 1.00 ERA).
Vanderbilt 334 020 000 – 12 12 0
South Carolina 100 000 000 – 1 7 3
Minor, Ty Davis (8) and Robin. Cisco, Thomas (3), Beverly (7), Wideberg (9) and Kline, Anders. W- , L- . Sv- None. HR- None.
