Winners and losers, April 26-May 2

Caden Grice has one-quarter of
the Tigers' home runs this season.
(Clemson photo)

Winners

* Clemson's sweep of Louisville earned the Tigers my co-team of the week honors along with North Greenville. But freshman Caden Grice 's performance was worthy of additional mention. The freshman out of Greer's Riverside High School feasted on Cardinals pitching. He went 9-for-13 (.692) with four homers and 12 RBIs in three games. That included a three-homer, eight-RBI effort in the series opener and a game-winning homer in Game 2. He improved his season batting average to .338 with 12 homers and 41 RBIs.

* Marshall Thompson of Lander struck out eight USC Aiken batters in his final start on Saturday to give him a school record 110 strikeouts this season. His 191 career strikeouts put him third on the Bearcats' all-time list.

* Florence-Darlington Tech went 4-1 for the week and continued to absolutely abuse the baseball. The Stingers (41-6) have scored 472 runs in 47 games this season and have scored 10 or more runs 30 times. They're the top seed for the NJCAA Region 10 Tournament beginning Friday at the Lexington County Baseball Stadium. 

* USC Sumter won three of four games against region opponents in games that didn't affect the league standings. One was a come-from-behind 4-3 win over FD Tech. That could boost the Fire Ants' confidence as their enter the tournament as the No. 4 seed

* Wofford scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning for a walk-off win in the rubber game of Saturday's doubleheader with Samford. That rally also propelled the Terriers into first place in the Southern Conference Blue Division, a half-game ahead of Mercer.

* Winning two of three games over Bluefield to close out the regular season enabled Columbia International to finish fifth in the Appalachian Athletic Conference standings and earn a more favorable seed for the NAIA league's tournament beginning this week in Kingsport, Tenn.

* The Presbyterian over the weekend pushed USC Upstate's winning streak to seven games,  All of the wins have been in Big South Conference play, allowing the Spartans to creep past Gardner-Webb into first place with three weeks remaining in the regular season.

Losers

* Mississippi's sweep of South Carolina was the Gamecocks' first 0-3 weekend in the SEC this season. Given the continued offensive struggles, it's a credit to the Carolina pitching staff that the first series sweep didn't come until week 7. USC is hitting .221 as a team through 21 conference games. Ole Miss pitchers held the Gamecocks to a .167 team batting average, while striking out 31 and walking two. With the NCAA planning to announce regional hosts early this season, USC likely needs a strong showing against Mississippi State next weekend to boost its hosting chances.

* You can forgive The Citadel coach Tony Skole if he's feeling some frustrations. An unearned run in the ninth inning against VMI on Saturday sent the Bulldogs to their eighth straight loss. As bad as that is, it's not the Bulldogs' longest skid of the season. They lost 12 a row earlier. The loss of leading hitter Tyler Corbitt (.376 in  23 games) hasn't helped. He was removed from the team after revealing plans to enter the transfer protocol and the record has been 3-12 since his departure. The next chance to snap the current slide? A Wednesday home game against a Top 10 Mississippi State squad.

Some of both

* Bob Jones won its first two games at Trinity Baptist before falling in Game 3. Daniel Barcena pitched a complete game for his first career win and had two hits for the Bruins in the first of two Saturday games. The Bruins finished the regular season with a 6-24 record. They will compete in the Non Dually Affiliated Group tournament in Springdale, Ark., May 10-12.