Cooper stymies Rebels

No. 14 South Carolina 4, No. 16 Mississippi 1

COLUMBIA — After watching his starter labor and wiggle from a jam in the first inning Sunday, South Carolina baseball coach Ray Tanner paced the home dugout and told every available reliever to be ready to throw an inning or two.

Tanner didn't need them. Blake Cooper made sure of that.

The sophomore right-hander rebounded from a shaky opening inning for a complete-game win against Mississippi in front of 4,702 fans at Sarge Frye Field.

"A complete game in college baseball is hard to come by," Tanner said. "I thought it was going to be a tough day for him, but he really came back and started making pitches."

The 14th-ranked Gamecocks' 4-1 victory provided for the series win against No. 16 Ole Miss.

The win helped USC (29-11, 11-7) claw back into the SEC East race, chopping Georgia's lead to three games with four weekends left until the conference tournament.

Cooper's complete game was the Gamecocks' first since Wynn Pelzer's in a win over Evansville on June 5, 2006, in the NCAA Regional in Charlottesville, Va.

Cooper (5-3) threw 31 pitches in the first inning, leaving the bases loaded by getting Ole Miss designated hitter Cullian Kight to ground out. Cooper said he was trying to establish his pitches when he took the mound. He kept missing with the curveball, and that led to two walks.

Then, he relaxed. Cooper needed just 35 pitches to get through the following five innings and 72 to close out the game. He had a shutout working until Cody Overbeck's homer to open the ninth.

Leaning heavily on his hard sinker, Cooper was a groundball-inducing machine.

Generally, pitching to contact and preventing walks is what you want in baseball. But perhaps not when the batter is working with aluminum at the plate.

Still, Cooper managed to keep the Rebels (25-15, 10-8) off balance and elicited 14 groundball outs.

"Sometimes he can avoid hard contact," Tanner said. "He did that today after he settled in. They didn't hit too many balls hard."

Pitching coach Mark Calvi said when Cooper's sinker is on you can expect either quick innings or lots of infield hits. Sunday's game went off at 2 hours, 23 minutes after the first inning took about a half-hour.

"I thought Coop did a heck of a job," Calvi said. "He never gives in."

USC was held well below its scoring average, but what the Gamecocks got early off Ole Miss starter Cody Satterwhite was enough.

In a three-run first, Reese Havens scored on an RBI single by Justin Smoak, who extended his hitting streak to 14 games. Phil Disher drove in Whit Merrifield and Smoak with a single through the left side of the infield.

Havens scored in the second when Smoak grounded into a double play.

Satterwhite settled, but by then Cooper had done the same.

Calvi said his starting staff of Mike Cisco, lefty Will Atwood and Cooper — which now has 14 of USC's 28 wins — has surprised some. But not him.

"It's been a surprise to people who didn't think they were going to be any good," Calvi said, defending his arms. "I'm not surprised. These guys are doing well.

"There's no big name. There's no wow factor. But these guys are older and they believe in themselves."

Note

Second baseman/outfielder Drew Crisp (back) might return in time for this weekend's series at LSU. Crisp, who had offseason back surgery, has been out since the Sunday game at Auburn after an outfield collision with Merrifield.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com and check out the new South Carolina blog at www.charleston.net/blogs/gamecocks.