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By John Manuel
June 16, 2002

South Carolina's Drew Meyer Photo: Robert Gurganus

OMAHA--All season long, when South Carolina needed a hit, it turned to senior first baseman Yaron Peters.

He only got one pitch Sunday against Nebraska, but it came in the ninth inning of a tie game with both teams facing elimination from the College World Series. Once again, Peters didn't disappoint his teammates, blasting a two-run homer to right that scraped over the wall and giving the Gamecocks a come-from-behind, 10-8 victory.

"We were four runs down, and after losing by a lot on Friday," South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said. "But we lost a lot of Friday night games during the season, only to come back and win the series. So we've been in that situation. This was a real character performance, and I'm really proud of my guys."

The defeat eliminated the Cornhuskers (47-21) in two games for the second straight year, leaving them 0-4 all-time in Omaha. They have lost those games by a total of five runs.

The two setbacks in 2002 followed similar scripts. Once again, the Huskers took an early 4-0 lead, as was the case Friday against Clemson. And after South Carolina (54-17) batted around and scored five runs in the fourth, Nebraska answered with a three-spot to retake the lead.

But once again, Nebraska's bullpen--not deep to begin with--couldn't hold the lead. Both teams scored a run in the eighth to keep the game knotted heading into the ninth. Lefthander Jeremy Becker, a freshman with a 5.52 ERA but also tied for the team lead with three saves, issued a one-out walk to Drew Meyer in the Gamecocks' ninth.

The 10th overall pick didn't try to steal as Becker struck out No. 2 hitter Justin Harris, but moved up on a 1-2 wild pitch to Peters. Becker tried to get Peters to chase an outside fastball, but missed too close to the plate.

The 6-foot-2, 224-pounder didn't miss, got his arms extended and muscled the ball over the wall for his 29th home run of the season.

"I hesitated to run Drew Meyer the whole at-bat, because I felt if he was at second base, they may walk Yaron, and I kept hoping for Yaron to get one pitch," Tanner said.

That's all Peters said he was looking for. "I didn't get much to hit, and when I did, it would be inside," he said. "I finally got something I could get extended on. It was a slider away and I just went with it.

"All day, I was waiting for something to get extended on. My eyes just blew up when I got that pitch."

The Gamecocks also turned out to be the only team to have a pitcher who could repeatedly throw strikes. Senior righthander John Wesley, who had thrown just 12 2/3 innings coming into the CWS, got the last 10 outs for the Gamecocks. While he gave up a game-tying homer to Jed Morris in the bottom of the eighth, Wesley pitched brilliantly otherwise, allowing just one other hit and no walks while striking out three.

"We like fastballs, but he got us to swing at a lot of borderline high pitches," said Nebraska coach Dave Van Horn. "He put up some big innings for them today."

Wesley was slated to be the Gamecocks' closer prior to the season pending his recovery from offseason shoulder surgery. When that took longer than hoped, righty Blake Taylor stepped into the role and led the nation with 21 saves. However, he's been South Carolina's best starter the last two weekends, so Tanner turned to him for the elimination game.

The Huskers, however, chased Taylor in the third inning, getting a run in the second and three more on home runs by Daniel Bruce (two-run) and Jeff Blevins (solo) in the third. But freshman lefty Brian Duensing couldn't hold it. Right fielder Steve Thomas started a streak where six straight Gamecocks got hits. The inning's fifth and final run scored on an error by shortstop Joe Simokaitis, giving the 'Cocks a 5-4 lead.

Nebraska got three back in the bottom half, though, to regain the advantage.

Again, it was one the Husker bullpen could not hold, as Thomas came through with a bases-loaded, two-run single to tie the score at seven in the sixth.

"The key to the ballgame was they got two big two-out hits, in the sixth and then of course in the ninth," Van Horn said. "We left a lot of guys out there today, and defensively we had a couple of errors that cost us runs.

"We never had a guy who could close out games (from the bullpen) all year, and it showed up big-time in Omaha."

The question left unanswered after the game was whether it was Van Horn's last game in a Nebraska uniform. He's an Arkansas alumnus and has been linked to his alma mater, which has a vacancy now that Van Horn's former coach, Norm DeBriyn, has retired.

South Carolina will play again on Tuesday against the loser of the Georgia Tech/Clemson matchup, with either righthander Aaron Rawl or lefty Steven Bondurant figuring to get the start.