South Carolina Baseball: Ranking the top-15 pitchers in Gamecock history
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina Baseball’s No. 3 Greatest Pitcher of All-Time:
Kip Bouknight
Kip Bouknight (1998-2001) is the only Gamecock player to ever win the Golden Spikes Award as the country’s top player. The 2000 recipient of the award brought home the hardware after going 17-1 with a 2.81 ERA and 1.08 WHIP for one of the country’s best teams. It was a clean sweep of awards for Bouknight that season as he also won the now-discontinued Rotary Smith Award that was given out to the country’s top player by a different organization.
While not nearly as dominant as his 2000 campaign, Bouknight’s other three seasons in garnet and black were still good. That 4-year stretch of quality pitching earned the Columbia native the program’s all-time record for innings pitched, strikeouts, and pitching victories. Bouknight shares the SEC’s all-time record for pitching wins with Mississippi State hurler Jeff Brantley.
Bouknight was never as outright dominant with stuff or gaudy strikeout numbers as some other pitchers to come through the South Carolina baseball program, but his durability and toughness have never been surpassed.
Perfectly illustrating the type of pitcher he was, Bouknight pitched a complete game shutout against The Citadel in the 2001 Columbia Regional and then, on just one day of rest, turned around and clinched the Regional with a 3 1/3 innings save against UCF.
Bouknight spent 8 years in professional baseball and just this past year became the second Gamecock player ever to have his jersey retired, joining fellow pitching legend Earl Bass with the honor.