SEEN AND HEARD AT THE COLUMBIA REGIONAL

* South Carolina coach Chad Holbrook said he tried to recruit one Saint Louis player: shortstop Alex Sole of  - coincidentally - Holbrook, N.Y. Sole, a sophomore, is batting .332 with a team-leading 10 stolen bases.

* Saint Louis has never played any of the other three teams in the regional. USC played three-game series against both Clemson and Liberty this season, going 2-1 in each series.

* USC center fielder Tanner English said he's ready to resume his experiment with switch-hitting and has begun taking some left-handed swings at a ball on a tee. English gave up the project because of injuries earlier in the season, believes the process helped him cut down on his strikeouts. "It gave me a lot more patience at the plate. When I learned the zone from the left side of the plate, it really helped me with the zone from the right side of the plate. That's why I want to get back into it again."

* Sophomore Jordan Montgomery is USC's probable pitcher for Game 2 of the regional on Saturday, but said having to be a spectator on Day 1 is no big deal. "I've always been just a pitcher, so I've always just pitched one game, then cheered for the team on the other days."

* Saint Louis University coach Darin Hendrickson has served as a batting practice pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals for more than a decade.

* Saint Louis listed average home attendance of 137 per game. First baseman Mike Vigliarolo called than a generous estimate.

* Billikens outfielder Alex Kelly started his college career as a quarterback at Colorado State University, but said he missed baseball too much. He transferred to junior college, then Saint Louis.

* Liberty coach Jim Toman said he got to see plans for Carolina Stadium when he was an assistant at USC. One of his suggestions for the assistant coach's office was "an eight-passenger hot tub." The suggestion didn't make the cut when the facility was built.

* Toman doffed his cap briefly at the end of Liberty's portion of the media availability to show a mohawk style haircut.

* USC has won 24 consecutive NCAA playoff games at home going back to a 2002 verdict over Miami to help the Gamecocks get to Omaha for the first time in Ray Tanner's tenure. Toman was an assistant on that team. He recalled that the 2000 and 2001 USC teams were very good, but fell a game short of reaching Omaha. Toman said he remembered the Gamecocks' rally to beat Miami "like it was yesterday. I remember being in the third base coaches box in the ninth inning thinking 'are we going to come this close to Omaha and miss for a third straight year?'" The Gamecocks, the visiting team in the game, wiped out a 4-1 deficit with a five-run ninth inning, then held off the Hurricanes in the bottom of the inning.