By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

For the third straight year, seventh-ranked South Carolina beat Clemson in the regular-season series thanks to Sunday’s 8-0 victory at Carolina Stadium in Columbia. Since 2007, the Gamecocks have owned their biggest rival in the northwest part of the state, winning 20 of the previous 28 meetings, including two of three over the weekend.

Though he would like to see that trend come to an end, Clemson head coach Jack Leggett cannot worry about that right now. He has to turn his attention to his team instead, and try to get them to play a little more consistent than they showed this weekend.

“I don’t care about that score right now,” Leggett said after Sunday’s game. “I’m not interested in that. We lost the ballgame. It is over with. We have to go onto the next one. We have a big week ahead of us. We begin the conference schedule.”

In the two games the Tigers (6-4) lost to South Carolina, mistakes in the field and hitting cost them. Clemson committed four errors in the two losses, allowing USC to score 10 unearned runs. The offense wasn’t much better, either.

The Tigers had eight combined hits and no runs to show in the two defeats, while pitchers Jordan Montgomery, Tyler Webb and Nolan Belcher combined for 19 strikeouts.

In the one game Clemson won, a 6-3 victory at Greenville’s Fluor Field on Saturday, the Tigers played flawless as they pounded out 11 hits and had no errors defensively.

“I have seen a lot of good things out of our team. We have to build upon that,” Leggett said.

The good things have mostly come from the pitching mound. Despite going 1-3 this past week, the Tiger pitching staff had a 1.95 ERA in the four games, but they were the victim of 12 unearned runs thanks to five errors and a passed ball.

“We have been pitching pretty well, and I thought our starting pitching was pretty good this weekend,” Leggett said.

It was good. Friday’s starter Daniel Gossett and Sunday starter Scott Firth combined to give up just two earned runs and 11 hits in 12.1 innings in the two losses to USC, while freshman Clate Schmidt pitched seven innings and gave up two runs off five hits in Saturday’s victory over the Gamecocks.

Clemson also got some decent production out of some young hitters as sophomore Garrett Boulware led the Tigers at the plate by going 4-for-10 last week with two doubles and two RBIs, while freshman Steven Duggar added four hits and two RBIs.

The negatives are obvious. The fielding was inconsistent all week and the bats struggled, especially against left-hand pitching. In all, Clemson hitters faced 10 lefties this week and only produced three runs (two earned) off 15 hits in 31.1 innings.

They also struck out 38 times.

“We are a little young in some places and we have to make ourselves a little bit better in other places,” Leggett said.

And they have to do it fast. Clemson faces Wofford at home on Wednesday before hitting the road to Raleigh, NC next weekend to kick off the ACC season at No. 9 NC State.