The Gamecock baseball team began conference play last weekend riding high, sitting at 14-3 and rocking a six-game winning streak.

That hot streak cooled quickly when the team traveled to Oxford for their SEC opener against Ole Miss. South Carolina dropped the first two games, 5-4 and 12-3, but defeated the Rebels 6-2 in the final game thanks to a balance of strong hitting and pitching to avoid a sweep.

“It’s really hard to play as well as we did today on the road in the SEC against a team like we played after two frustrating days,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “I’m really proud of the result we had today. Showed a lot.”

Chapin product Matthew Becker earned the win after pitching 5.1 innings in relief of starter Roman Kimball. Kimball allowed zero hits in 1.2 innings but struggled to pitch strikes, giving up walks and filling the bases in the second inning.

Becker came out of the bullpen in relief and survived the inning with zero runs allowed. He pitched through the seventh and allowed just four hits and two runs while recording four strikeouts in 20 batters faced.

“Hard to give him enough credit for what he did,” Kingston said. “He came in with the bases loaded. Got us out of that jam against the guy that hit three homers yesterday. And then he just was as good as I’ve seen him since he’s been a Gamecock.”

Garrett Gainey finished the game for South Carolina and gave up a hit and a walk but made up for them with two strikeouts.

Becker’s win gives him his fourth this season. He begins this week 4-0, which is the best on the team.

The Gamecocks scored all six of their runs in the second and fifth innings.

Tyler Causey opened things up with his third home run of the year off a shot to the left-field bullpen to bring in two runs. Parker Noland hit an RBI single later in the inning to expand the lead.

In the fifth inning, Talmadge LeCroy brought in two RBIs off a double to grow the lead to five. LeCroy was efficient from the plate in this contest, hitting 3-5. The Gamecocks scored their final run of the game after an Ole Miss fielding error.

Sunday’s win was the team’s first against a major conference opponent. The team’s only other games against an opponent of that caliber was the two-game Clemson series.

Against the non-power conference schools, the Gamecocks have been very successful, holding a 14-1 record while averaging around 10 runs a game. However, the series loss to Ole Miss was enough to move the team from No. 20 in the country to unranked.

The Gamecocks struggled from the plate overall in this series. South Carolina hit 2-15 with runners on base in game one defeat and finished with six base hits. Game two was not much better with the team hitting just 3-16 with a runner on.

The pitching display in game two was poor with the bullpen allowing eight runs in the eighth inning to give Ole Miss its 12-3 lead. Coming back from one run in the ninth is doable, but needing nine runs in one inning is not a position to be in.

Moving forward, the team will be fully immersed in its SEC schedule with occasional midweek out-of-conference games.

This week, the Gamecocks will face No. 3 Vanderbilt for their SEC home opener March 22-24. The Commodores are 18-3 and swept No. 18 Auburn in their conference opener last week.

A series win over a top-10 opponent would put the Gamecocks back on track and in the good graces of poll voters.