By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

Seventh-ranked South Carolina might have a new skipper in the dugout, but on Friday night at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, it was more of the same when it came to beating Clemson.

New head coach Chad Holbrook got his first win in what has become known as the nation’s best rivalry thanks to a three-run seventh inning in the Gamecocks’ 6-0 victory. It was South Carolina’s sixth win in the last seven meetings and its ninth victory in the last 11 in the longstanding series. It was also the Gamecocks first victory at Clemson since a 6-0 win in 2008.

“We just have to keep playing and keep on going,” Clemson head coach Jack Leggett said. “Baseball is a funny game and there is a lot of season left. It will go for us enough during the course of the season.”

Like they have a lot during the Gamecocks’ current run in the series, USC got all the crazy bounces, again. Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Clemson catcher Garrett Boulware drilled Jordan Montgomery’s offering to deep left where it appeared the ball went over the wall. But instead, it hit the orange padding atop the wall and bounced back into play.

“When I first hit it, and I looked up, I thought it was going to go,” Boulware said. “I saw the flags before I went up (to the plate) that it was still blowing in pretty hard so I was still running pretty hard because I knew the wind could kill it and it could just die in left field.

“I was running pretty hard, but after I saw it I said, “Maybe,” but I put my head down and started running and then saw the ball on the ground and I tried to leg it out into a triple.”

The play was correctly ruled a double instead of home run and Boulware beat the throw to third, but he slid over the bag and was tagged out for the innings’ final out.

“I was just trying to get to second and then I saw the ball bounce off. I could not tell if it hit the wall or the rail,” he said. “Apparently, it hit the wall, but once I saw it bounce back I was just trying to get to third as fast as I could.

“I beat the throw, but I slid inside and I tried to catch it with my hand and hold on to it, and it slid off. I tried to move my hand back and tag it with the other hand, but he got me before I got it back on there.”

The Tigers (5-3) did not recover, instead, they crumbled. A blunder in the top of the seventh inning magnitude the sixth after Shane Kennedy, who was recruited as an infielder, dropped a routine flyball to left field off the bat of T.J. Costen with one out.

Friday was Kennedy’s first start in the outfield, replacing Maleeke Gibson, who had started four games there already this season.

“That’s baseball. It happens,” Clemson starter Daniel Gossett said. “You can’t fall apart after that. That’s just baseball. You have to come back and make your pitches, but I let it get in my head and I didn’t make my pitches.”

Gossett walked the next two batters before being pulled after 6.1 innings, and then a walk, a sacrifice fly and an LB Dantzler single to right field scored three unearned runs to put the Gamecocks up 4-0.

The error ruined what was a pretty good night for the righty. He only gave up three hits and three of the four runs he allowed were unearned.

“I can’t blame it on that. It is just baseball,” Gossett said. “I still have to make my pitches.”

Clemson had an opportunity to get back in the game in the bottom of the seventh when Steve Wilkerson doubled to left field and Kennedy walked to lead off the inning. But Kevin Bradley, Jay Baum and Jon McGibbon all popped up as Montgomery again got out of an inning with no damage done.

“We just have to play our game,” Boulware said. “We don’t need to think we are playing Carolina, but that we are playing Clemson baseball and that is our opponent. We just need to play the way we know how to play and things will go our way.

“We let one thing lead to another. We just need to move past it and tomorrow will be a better day.”

For the second straight game, the Tigers’ bats were cold. After being limited to six hits against Winthrop, Montgomery dominated them by commanding the strike zone as he had a career-high nine strikeouts, while limiting Clemson to three hits.

The lefty’s eight innings pitched tied his career-high for a third time.

“That Montgomery kid pitched really well,” Leggett said. “He did not give us very much. We did not hit any ground balls and we struck out a little bit too much tonight. He was good. He was really good.”

Five of USC’s six runs were unearned as the Tigers had three errors after only committing five in the previous seven games.

“We had a good game going through the sixth and then we gave up five unearned runs. That’s going to hurt you,” Leggett said. “We had been playing really good defense, but we hurt ourselves a couple of times tonight.”

The two will meet at Greenville’s Fluor Field Saturday at 2 p.m. in Game 2 of the three-game series.