By Sinderella
Belmont comes into Columbia, SC, looking to continue their bounce-back season after starting the season 4-1 with wins over Eastern Michigan and Northern Alabama. The Bruins are lead by 2nd-team All-MVC, Mason Landers, who finished last year with a .277 batting average, 12 homeruns, and 42 runs batted in. He is paired up with a few Bruins that are having great starts to their 2024 seasons: Max Jones, Landon Godsey, and true freshmen Ty Allen and Pete Daniel. All five of these players are hitting above .300 in the early season.
Moving over to the pitching, the starting rotation all had very solid outings in week one, going at least five innings with no more than two earned runs given up. However, the bullpen has not gotten off to the hot start that the rest of the team has. This is a pitching staff I think South Carolina can work for long counts to their advantage, as they have in their first five games (#1 in the country in walks).
South Carolina is going with their same starting rotation of Eli Jones, Dylan Eskew, and Roman Kimball. Looking at Belmont's strikeouts-to-walks ratio, if South Carolina comes out like they did last week and pound the strike zone, they can potentially replicate the same success they did versus Miami (OH).
This is a series that looks like it will be a bit more competitive than the last series for South Carolina, but ultimately many believe the Gamecocks will sweep the Bruins.
(All pictures courtesy of @GamecockBll & BelmontBruins.com)
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