Gamecocks baseball coach Ray Tanner made his annual preseason trip to Florence on Tuesday night to talk USC baseball with Pee Dee Gamecock fans. WPDE Sports spoke with Tanner to discuss a number of local angles to the 2012 Gamecocks on the diamond as well as the quest for three straight national championships.
The Gamecocks will come to Florence for an April 11th game at Division II Francis Marion. Tanner brings his team to the Pee Dee to help celebrate the Patriots new baseball stadium
"It's a situation where they are opening up a new ballpark. Coach Arty (Inabinet) and I have been friends for a long time and it's just great for baseball, it's great for the state. I know a lot of people would probably question me coming over here to play because you can get beat. They're a great club and it is baseball, but that's not the way we look at it. We look at it as It's good for our state, it's good for both of our schools and it's good for the community in Florence. We're looking forward to the opportunity. "
Freshman Tanner English turned down a six figure signing bonus from the Tampa Bay Rays after getting drafted in the 11th round of the amateur draft. Coach Tanner talks about the impact the Saint James Shark outfielder will have in his freshman season
We got to get him on the field. There's no question about that. He's a tremendous athlete, he's worked very, very hard. He's going to play left field, he's going to play centerfield, he's probably going to start opening day somewhere. We're trying to get him into a position where he's a better offensive player. If he's on the bases more, he's going to steal a lot of bags for us.
Conway's Colby Holmes was 7-3 with a 3.69 ERA as a part of the weekend rotation on the 2011 national champs. Tanner says he'll be in the weekend mix once again
Colby's a mainstay now. He's doing a great job for us. He had a great outing last weekend in the scrimmage and he'll be in the rotation on opening weekend.
Lake City's Shon Carson was supposed to play right away for USC, but a football injury will keep him on the shelf
Shon's not going to be able to play this year because of the injury in football We think he may be 100 percent by the end of March and that's too late for us. .It will be a redshirt season for him in football and baseball. We think he's an outstanding player. He has to get healthy first, but after this season he's got four years to play.
The Gamecocks open the season on February 17th against VMI looking for a third straight national championship
There's so much parity in college baseball. The fact we just won it twice is amazing to me. There's so many teams that could win it. We're just fortunate that we've been able to close the old stadium at Rosenblatt and open up the new stadium at TD Ameritrade. Can it happen again? It's going to be a tremendous, tremendous challenge, but let's go play and see what happens.
