Gamecock Glory by Travis Haney

Author:Travis Haney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.

Chapter 12

CLOSING TIME

JUNE 12, 2010

Mark Calvi’s heart and mind raced as he watched Matt Price trot in from the bullpen.

Calvi took pride in his ability to put South Carolina’s pitchers in the best possible positions for success. This was the opposite. He was setting the team’s redshirt freshman closer up for failure.

Coastal Carolina had the bases loaded. There were no outs in the eighth inning of the teams’ first Super Regional game, with the Gamecocks hanging on to a 4–3 lead. The stadium, Myrtle Beach’s BB&T Coastal Field, had a 308-foot short porch in left field—and the wind was blowing out in that direction. Coastal, hitting .326 with 107 home runs and 146 doubles as a team, had a lineup every bit as potent as those they had seen in the SEC. The Chanticleers had already won fifty-five games, more than any team in college baseball would all season.

The Coastal coach’s kid, Chance Gilmore, was the batter. Gilmore had twelve home runs and fifty-four RBIs—better power numbers than anyone on South Carolina’s roster at the time. Oh, and he was a left-handed hitter against Price, a right-handed pitcher.

“That’s the worst thing you can do to a kid,” Calvi said. “I thought, ‘This is the worst possible situation you could ever be in.’”

Good thing Price saw it differently than his coach.

“He looked at it as the best thing you could ever do,” Calvi said. “He looked at it as a chance to show how good he was.”

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