Former South Carolina baseball commitment following Mark Kingston to Creighton

Athletic director Ray Tanner fired Mark Kingston as the head coach of the South Carolina baseball program after another disappointing year in Columbia and replaced him with legendary former LSU Tigers coach Paul Mainieri. The Kingston dismissal came after the Gamecocks limped down the stretch of the season and, after a decent run in the SEC tournament, got bounced unceremoniously during the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament.

Kingston was hired by the Creighton Blue Jays shortly after, and it was reported initially that he was going to replace long-time head coach Ed Servais, but then news came out that Kingston was to be the coach-in-waiting as Servais will be the headman in Omaha for one more season as he planned when he announced his retirement a month earlier.

Not many Gamecock players hit the transfer portal, and even fewer Carolina commitments backed off of their pledges to the program. However, a few have been affected by Kingston's dismissal. The most recent came in recent days as former South Carolina baseball right-handed pitcher commitment Henry Prindl announced his flip to Creighton, following Kingston to the Blue Jays.

Prindl was a top-500 national prospect in the class of 2024 and committed to the Gamecocks last year, but the Las Vegas native will not move all the way across the country to Columbia after all. Prindl is one of the highest-rated high school commitments in recent memory and will look to anchor the pitching staff for a Creighton squad that has struggled over the last decade, making just one NCAA Tournament since 2013.

Even with the Prindl loss, South Carolina baseball is not void of new pitching talent for the 2025 season. A nice combination of junior college and high school arms will jump into the mix this fall as the team gets ready for next spring, including several players who would have been taken in the MLB Draft had they not made it clear that they wanted to go to school.

Prindl's defection comes shortly after the decommitment of catcher/third baseman Peter Mershon.