Sorry I’ve been MIA in all week, but gameday is finally here, and I’m finally back.
The Gamecocks (40-17) will meet the Jaspers (33-25) later this afternoon at Carolina Stadium. Carolina is the No. 8 national seed and No. 1 seed in the Columbia Regional, while Manhattan is the No. 4 seed in the Regional.

USC will be without the talents of the injured Grayson Greiner, and Dante Rosenberg will take over behind the plate.

The loss of Greiner is obviously unfortunate, but South Carolina is no stranger to adversity in post-season play. Their mantras of “battle” and “win anyway” have served them well before, so it’s likely they’ll invoke those same sentiments this time around.

This team has a good amount of guys who have been here before, but there are also plenty of freshmen who are just getting their first taste of NCAA Tournament play. Everyone’s going to need to step up and play their best if the Cocks want to get back to Omaha and go for the threepeat as CWS champs.

Michael Roth will not start today’s game for Carolina; Colby Holmes will instead get the nod. Roth will go tomorrow. Taylor Sewitt will handle pitching duties for the Jaspers.

In other news, Roth is racking up honors left and right. He was named to the Capital One Academic All-America First Team for the second straight year, took a quick trip to Destin, Florida last night to accept the McWhorter Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, and is in the running for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award (he’s currently in thrid place, vote here everyday).

He’s received a variety of other conference honors, too, and just graduated with a degree in international business and a grade point average near 4.o. Not too shabby.

Today’s game was originally scheduled to begin at 4 ET, but after a weather delay in the Clemson-Coastal game currently being played, our start time is approximately 5:20 ET.