COLUMBIA, S.C. – Junior Kalani Matton was 2-for-2 with an RBI, a walk and the baseball team's first stolen base of the season, but South Carolina erased an early deficit to defeat Cornell, 10-2, in Friday's series opener on a gusty evening at Founders Park.
 
Cornell (1-6) faced a potential first-round draft pick in the upcoming MLB amateur draft in South Carolina (9-4) starter Cameron Mlodzinski, but it used a patient approach to do some damage by drawing five walks over Mlodzinski's 5.1 innings.
 
The Big Red scored the game's first two runs in the second inning. One of those aforementioned free passes was drawn by junior Ramon Garza, then he aggressively moved to third on junior Nicholas Binnie's sinking line-drive single to right. Senior Alex Carnegie drove in Garza with a sacrifice fly that also allowed Binnie to move up third. Matton then poked a two-out single through the right side of the infield that sent Binnie trotting home.
 
But the lead was short-lived, with a couple of errors paving the way for four South Carolina runs in the bottom of the frame. Wes Clarke then yanked a two-out homer down the line in left in the fifth, accounting for the only two earned runs against Cornell senior starter Colby Wyatt in his five innings of work.
 
The Big Red brought the tying run to the plate in the top of the sixth with the bases loaded and two out after chasing Mlodzinski, but a strikeout from South Carolina's first reliever ended the threat. The Gamecocks then padded the lead with four more runs in the bottom of the frame.
 
Freshman Shane Russell was 2-for-4, and freshman Wils Guy worked a walk to extend his streak of consecutive games reaching base to six games.
 
The teams resume the series at 4 p.m. Saturday, with freshman Spencer Edwards scheduled to start for the Big Red.