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| Todd Interdonato has coached Wofford teams to six seasons with 30 wins or more. (Wofford photo) |
Winners
* Coach Todd Interdonato has led Wofford to unprecedented success on the NCAA Division I level. The school had gone more than a decade without a winning season before he took over in 2007. After some foundation work, he has made winning seasons common in Spartanburg. Tuesday night's win against Davidson gave Interdonato his school-record 350th career victory.
* Clemson was coming off an ACC series win over Virginia Tech when it went to North Augusta Tuesday night to play Georgia Southern along the banks of the Savannah River. One out away from victory, Georgia Southern tied the score when a pop fly eluded several Clemson defenders. With a runner in scoring position in the bottom of the inning, coach Monte Lee sent Alex Urban in the pinch-hit. The freshman was batting .136 before the at-bat, but smacked a home to give Clemson its fourth win in five games. The momentum carried over to the weekend, when the Tigers swept Boston College. Clemson evened its league record at 6-6 after a 1-5 start and moved its overall record to 12-9 with its current five-game winning streak. The Tigers had to come from behind to win a Friday slugfest, then erupted in the 10th inning of Game 1 Saturday and coasted in Game 2. The Tigers put together their best three-game offensive stint of the season, batting .355 and raising the season average more than 20 points. One of the ring leaders was freshman Caden Grice, who was 9-for-16 with three doubles, a triple, a homer and 13 RBIs. If Clemson can continue to hit the ball like it did over the weekend, it could make some noise over the final two-thirds of the ACC season.
* Even before being swept at Texas earlier this month, experts on message boards were lamenting South Carolina's offensive downturn in the Mercer series after a hot start to the season. When the losing streak - including a midweek loss to Davidson -- reached six after being no-hit at Vanderbilt -- the doom-and-gloomers were chirping loudly. The Gamecocks have responded with five straight wins. Down to its final strike in the 14th inning of Friday's series opener against Florida, USC found a way to tie the game and win it moments later. There wasn't as much drama on Saturday and Sunday, thanks to mostly superb pitching (45 strikeouts for the series). Carolina got its first series win in over the Gators in Columbia since 2008 at Sarge Frye Field and its first three-game sweep of the Gators since 2006.
* Because of COVID-19 related cancellations, Presbyterian hasn't had much luck getting in rhythm. That changed over the weekend, when the Blue Hose got a Big South Conference sweep of Charleston Southern. PC pitchers had a 0.67 ERA and held CSU to .163 hitting for the weekend, and it was needed because Buccaneers pitching was almost as good. Charleston Southern had a three-game ERA of 2.25 and held PC to a .222 team average.
* USC Beaufort got a pair of a walk-off wins during its weekend sweep of Warner. The Sand Sharks have won four straight and are four games above .500 for the second time this season.
* Winthrop went through some struggles early in the season. The Eagles started 3-5, then had their first seven Big South Conference games postponed because of COVID-19-related issues. The Eagles have bounced back well. Their doubleheader sweep of USC Upstate gave the Eagles their second straight weekend series win and moved them to 5-2 in the Big South.
* Florence-Darlington Tech, Spartanburg Methodist and USC Union all got big series wins in NJCAA Region 10 play. FD Tech put some room between itself and Louisburg in the standings with a 3-1 series win. Spartanburg Methodist moved past Louisburg with a 3-0 sweep of USC Salkehatchie to pad its winning streak to eight games. USC Union had arguably one of its biggest weekends since joing Region 10 when it won three of four over USC Sumter. Jacob Davis and Justin Kerosetz had seven hits apiece and Chandler Moeller, who ranks among the region's batting leaders, was 5-for-10 with two homers.
Losers
* Speaking of scheduling issues, Benedict was in danger of not having a season after the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decided to not conduct a spring championship. But school officials allowed coach Selwyn Young to assemble a modest schedule on short notice. But scheduling games and playing them are different. A scheduled Sunday doubleheader with Mid Atlantic Christian was canceled, as was a second twinbill with the school later in the season. Now, the Tigers are not scheduled to play again until April 13 and have only one more doubleheader remaining after that. They've played four games and had a fifth one suspended because of darkness. It will take some work for the Tigers not to consider 2021 a bust merely because of the lack of opportunity.* Lander had a chance to climb in the Peach Belt Conference standings and tighten things overall as it welcomed first-place UNC Pembroke for a weekend series at Dolny Stadium. Instead, the Braves scored 42 runs in sweeping the host Bearcats. Saturday's Game 2 loss was particularly disappointing after Lander rallied for a 7-3 lead, fell behind and rallied twice to tie before Pembroke scored the deciding run in the ninth inning.
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