Winners and losers, May 10

WINNERS

Clemson -- The Tigers got three confidence-building victories over Maryland and were able to close ground on ACC Atlantic leader Florida State and put more distance between themselves and third-place Boston College. A comparable outing at Wake Forest next weekend could set Clemson up perfectly for its final conference series in two weeks -- at home against FSU, with the division title up for grabs.

Coastal Carolina -- The Chanticleers continue to do all they can to make their case for a national seed. There's still one game left in the Winthrop series on Monday, but so far, so good.

College of Charleston -- Granted, it was only a net gain of one game in the standings, but the 2-1 series win over The Citadel has the Cougars well within reach of the Southern Conference lead.

Erskine, Francis Marion -- For both teams, the body of work was enough to merit bid to the NCAA Division II playoffs despite disappointing results during conference tournaments.

Kevin Melillo, Landon Powell -- Sunday was a good day for the former Gamecocks. Melillo was promoted from AA to AAA in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and Powell caught Dallas Braden's perfect game for Oakland. Powell also drove in a run.

North Greenville -- The Crusaders didn't have the resume to merit an at-large bid to the NCAA Division II playoffs as they had hoped, but they get to continue their season in the National Christian College Athletic Association playoffs at Chowan this week.

USC Upstate -- For the second time in the past three weekends, the Spartans won a league series. They're still in last place in the Atlantic Sun, but they're showing that the can be competitive against league rivals

Wofford -- Going 2-1 against Samford allowed the Terriers to create a slight buffer (2 games) between eighth and ninth palce in the SoCon standings. Only the top eight teams qualify for the tournament.

LOSERS

Furman -- Mathematically, there's still time to turn things around and climb back into the SoCon Tournament picture, but the Paladins have shown little indication that there's a chance of that happening. A loss in the series finale at Western Carolina today would drop the Paladins into a last-place tie with Davidson.

South Carolina -- USC hasn't been on this side of the ledger after a weekend series in quite a while. Losing an SEC series -- particularly on the road -- is certainly no disgrace, and the law of averages was likely due to catch up with the Gamecocks. The discouraging aspect for USC boosters could be that Kentucky showed over the final two games that there is a way to rein in what had been a red-hot Gamecocks offense.