Former South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston gets new coaching job

Mark Kingston is headed to Omaha. Unfortunately for South Carolina baseball fans, this wasn't something he was able to accomplish as the head coach of the Gamecocks. However, according to a report from D1Baseball's Kendall Rogers, he will be headed there to take over the Creighton Blue Jays program.

Kingston has worked in the midwest before as he was the head coach at Illinois State from 2010-2014.

Now with Creighton, Kingston will look to take the Blue Jays back to the NCAA Tournament, something they haven't done since 2019 and have only done once since the end of the 2012 season. Despite the College World Series being played at Charles Schwab Field, Creighton's home ballpark, the team has not made it that far in the NCAA Tournament since 1991.

Kingston will replace Ed Servais as head coach. Servais worked at Creighton for 21 seasons as the head coach after six years as an assistant.

During his time with the South Carolina baseball program, Mark Kingston missed two NCAA Tournaments (the same number of missed tournaments from the previous 20 years) and led the Gamecocks to two non-winning seasons (one more than they had had during the previous 47 years).

Since Kingston's firing, South Carolina has hired legendary coach Paul Mainieri to take his place. Mainieri has hired an elite staff as Monte Lee will serve as associate head coach and hitting coach, Terry Rooney will be the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, and John Hendry will serve as an assistant coach will have responsibilities with pitchers and recruiting.

The Gamecocks have not endured a significant exodus from the program via the transfer portal since Kingston's departure as, so far, the only players who have announced intentions of leaving were ones who are looking for more playing time elsewhere.

Mainieri and the Gamecocks and Kington and the Blue Jays will begin their respective seasons next February.