re: Baseball Season is finally over!

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When Alex Destino was starring at North Buncombe High School in Weaverville, N.C., twice he had the opportunity to spurn South Carolina.

Each time, the decision he made favored the Gamecocks.

First recruited by major programs when he was a sophomore in high school, Destino verbally committed to USC before his junior year in high school (2012-13), electing to travel south to Columbia rather than play for one of the major home state schools such as North Carolina or N.C. State.

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I wasn't born in North Carolina, so I have never had that loyalty to Chapel Hill or Duke or N.C. State like most of the people do from where I'm from," said Destino, who was born in Redlands, Calif., and lived there through kindergarten. "Coming down here and talking to Coach (Chad) Holbrook, who was the recruiting coordinator at the time, he is really good at what he does. I came down here, looked around and was blown away by the people and the facilities here.

"Following college baseball, I knew this place had a pretty good reputation. When Coach Holbrook was promoted to head coach (in August 2012), it was the ideal situation for me because I was so close to him as a recruiter. Now he's my head coach, so that was a big factor. And the people and the fans are no joke."

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"I like Alex in there," Holbrook said. "Between Alex and Max Schrock and Kyle Martin, those are three formidable hitters. We need to get those three guys going to be the type of offensive team we need to be. Alex is a key part. I hate putting that on a freshman, but he needs to do well for us to do well. He's a threat and can provide protection for Kyle Martin or Max depending on how we do the lineup. I have a lot of confidence in him."

Destino has started three of the first four games at designated hitter, batting cleanup twice and fifth once. Entering the weekend, he is hitting .333 (4-12) with one homer, three RBI and a .583 slugging percentage. He has fanned just once in his first 12 at-bats.

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Just a quick note about the softball team.

I want to say that they're something like 9-3 / 10-3. Beat #20 Cal tonight and lost to a highly ranked FSU @FSU in extra innings.

They've come a long way from just a few years ago when they barely won 10 games in an entire season and no more than 3-5 SEC games total.

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South Carolina has added a non-conference baseball game with High Point on Wednesday, March 4 at 4 p.m. at Carolina Stadium. The game is a makeup date for Carolina after the February 24 game vs. Davidson was canceled due to rain.

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