South Carolina Baseball: Gamecocks climbing up the polls once again

South Carolina baseball fans knew that this weekend was close to a "must-win" for the Gamecocks if hosting a Regional was going to be a realistic possibility for the 2024 version of the YardCocks. Mark Kingston's team delivers, beating the top-5 Kentucky Wildcats two games out of three to push their SEC record above .500 and keep the hosting hopes alive.

Because of the big series win, the Gamecocks are climbing back up in the national polls.

D1Baseball gave USC the 15th spot in their top-25 rankings, a big jump of 9 spots from last week's 24th ranking.

Perfect Game had the Gamecocks outside of their top-25 a week ago but re-inserted Carolina into the rankings at #21.

A three-spot bump came from Baseball America as the outlet moved South Carolina baseball up to 19th after ranking them 22nd previously.

USA Today had the 'Cocks ranked 21st for two weeks in a row before rocketing them up to 14 in this week's edition of their top-25.

14th is also where the NCBWA (National College Baseball Writers Association) placed Mark Kingston's team, another sizeable jump of five spots for the garnet and black.

College Baseball Central voted to move up South Carolina baseball three spots from #18 to #15.

The Gamecocks will have one more game at home (a mid-week contest against the East Tennessee State Buccaneers) before hitting the road for a three-game series against the Missouri Tigers in the "other Columbia" over the weekend.

The ETSU matchup will be played on Wednesday at Founders Park, and first pitch is scheduled for 6:30. The game will be streamable on SEC Network+.

The Mizzou series is a standard Friday to Sunday three-game set in which all three games will be streamable on the SEC Network+. Game 1 will begin at 7:00 PM EST, first pitch for game 2 is set for 4:00 PM EST, and Sunday's finale is scheduled for a 2:00 PM EST start.