South Carolina suffers first-ever 30-loss season as Alabama holds on for sweep

It had simply become unavoidable. Unless South Carolina won every remaining game, the next loss would put the program in the history books for something it had never done in its 133-year history.

With five games left in the regular season, plus at least one more in the SEC Tournament, the odds of winning out were always slim simply because the Gamecocks hadn’t shown themselves capable of that kind of consistency this year. 2025 was already widely viewed as the program’s worst season for a variety of reasons. Less than a year later, though, 2026 will have taken that title after this weekend.

South Carolina saw its losing streak extended to a season-high eight games — something that hadn’t happened since 1961 — after a 7-6 loss to No. 19 Alabama. Even worse for the Gamecocks, the defeat marked their first-ever 30-loss season, surpassing last year’s previous high of 29 losses.

“It’s really challenging. It’s challenging because anytime you cut on your phone and you cut on social media, what are the kids going to see, right? The reality of we’ve lost eight straight,” interim head coach Monte Lee said. “We understand where we’re at. We understand what the expectations are, but they’re also human, and when things are just not going well for you, and you read into those things, it makes it really, really challenging.”

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Within eight pitches, Alabama had already jumped all over Alex Valentin, stringing together three straight hits, including back-to-back doubles, to take a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

Valentin settled in after that, tossing three scoreless frames before running into more trouble in the fifth. After issuing a leadoff walk to the nine-hole hitter, the left-hander loaded the bases with one out, leading to Alabama plating two runs on a sacrifice fly and an error by Will Craddock.

Valentin’s day ended shortly after that, as he lasted 4.2 innings and allowed five runs (four earned) on six hits while striking out one and walking one. Since moving into the weekend rotation more than a month ago, he has pitched beyond the fifth only once in his last five starts.

“I think at the end of the day, you look at the day, it’s just like this: barrel, barrel, barrel, barrel,” Lee said of Valentin’s struggles. “Just that offensive momentum that they created in the first inning, they put up a big inning and scored three runs. And when you score three runs, and I don’t even think we had a free 90 that I remember in the first inning, that’s tough. … He just caught some barrels and then kind of settled in and did a pretty good job there for a while.”

Falling into an immediate hole didn’t help, especially for an offense that hasn’t shown much consistency all season. But the Gamecocks (22-30, 7-20 SEC) still had plenty of chances to score early on.

In both the fourth and fifth innings, South Carolina loaded the bases but came away empty-handed each time. In the fourth, Myles Upchurch threw eight straight balls to load the bases with one out, but two first-pitch swings quickly ended the threat.

Lee defended the reasoning behind Tyler Bak and Will Craddock swinging at the first pitch in those situations. He noted how both have hit well with runners in scoring position.

“I don’t think we can question whether Bak should have taken or swung the bat in that situation. And then once he lined out, now we have how many outs? Two,” Lee said. “Craddock is a guy that’s got to hit early in the count, because if he gets two strikes on him, it can be challenging. He’s not a great two-strike hitter yet. So, whether you take a pitch you get when we were taken late in the game, you know, to try to get the time run on base, I think it depends on the game situation, and I also think it depends on who is at the plate.”

Then in the fifth, the bases were loaded with nobody out, and after Patrick Evans flied out to right field without a tag from third, Jake Randolph and Talmadge LeCroy both struck out swinging.

After wasting both of those spots, the Gamecocks finally broke through for a run with two outs in the sixth when Ethan Lizama hit an RBI single into left-center field. Upchurch was otherwise spotless as he pitched six innings of one-run ball, giving up six hits and striking out five with three walks.

South Carolina continued to battle to try to cut into the lead, which it did by scoring four runs in the eighth against former Gamecock Ashton Crowther. After a run scored on an error, followed by a Luke Yuhasz sacrifice fly, KJ Scobey delivered the big blow with a two-run homer into left.

In the ninth, the Gamecocks inched even closer after Dawson Harman came through with an RBI single with one out to make it a one-run game. But with the tying run at first and the winning run at the plate, Tyler Bak and Craddock were each retired to end the threat and the ballgame.

“With the way that we have been scoring runs this year, if we can get to six runs a game, you’re going to give yourself a chance to win if you pitch and play defense,” Lee said. “But we’ve had days where we pitched and played defense that we didn’t hit. So I’m certainly not putting one against the other there. We need to be more of a complete team all the way around.”

Up next: South Carolina will face Winthrop in the home finale on Tuesday night at Founders Park. First pitch will be at 6:30 p.m. on SEC Network+.

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