TKO in Starkville

By Mark Etheridge - March 23, 2007

Twenty runs, twenty five hits. If this was a fight, it would have been stopped for brutality. Mississippi State entered the game with the lofty offensive numbers, but South Carolina was the team that put on the hitting display in their 20-3 victory.

"It is unfortunate you don't get a carryover on a night like this, said South Carolina coach Ray Tanner. "We were extremely fortunate. When the game started out, (MSU starter Aaron) Weatherford was low-to-mid nineties and it looked pretty difficult. All of a sudden we scratch a few and then get a big hit. We swung it certainly as well as we can swing it."

Despite coming in with just a .206 average, Reese Havens went 5-6 with three doubles and four RBI raising his average to 58 points to 264.

"I just wanted to stay aggressive," Havens said. "I had a decent midweek game. I felt like I had been seeing it a little better. It came together tonight."

"I told him a couple of weeks ago, he wasn't hitting anything extremely hard and was getting anything to fall in either. That is a bad combination. I said, maybe you'll be an SEC guy this year and get all your hits in the league. He has done pretty good so far."