South Carolina baseball fans have been optimistic about their favorite team's chances to bounce back to relevancy since athletic director Ray Tanner made the surprise hire of the legendary Paul Mainieri to be the Gamecocks' head coach.
In addition to Mainieri's reputation as a winner (he is 11th on the all-time college baseball wins list, regardless of level, and he has more wins than any other active head coach), Gamecock fans are excited about the elite staff of assistants that Mainieri has brought to Columbia.
On Friday night, Virginia pitcher Aaron Dierks announced that he was committing to Paul Mainieri and the South Carolina baseball program. Dierks, who plays for West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia, is part of the class of 2026, meaning he is a junior in high school.
Springfield is a southern suburb of Washington DC, a key recruiting area for the Virginia Cavaliers, the school where assistant pitching coach and assistant recruiting coordinator John Hendry was before being hired by Mainieri to join the South Carolina baseball program.
As a player, Dierks also plays some as a right-handed swinger at first base and third base, but his college future likely is as a right-handed pitcher.
The 6'3" right-hander has a very repeatable pitching motion and hides the ball well, making up for a lack of elite "stuff." As a player with two more years of high school development in front of him, he has some time to add velocity on his fastball and heavy break on his curveball. As it stands, his fastball reaches the upper 80s, and his curveball has a high spin rate. As he grows and develops, he should add velocity to the fastball, and that solid spin rate should result in more curveball break as it is thrown harder.
Dierks's commitment to the Gamecocks is the team's fifth in the class of 2026 and the second in the '26 cycle since Coach Mainieri was hired to replace Mark Kingston as head coach, joining fellow pitcher Walker Cox.