NASHVILLE, Tenn.---In his first Southeastern Conference start, Vanderbilt's Jack Leiter no-hit South Carolina, striking out 16 in the Commodores' 5-0 win at Hawkins Field on Saturday.
Second baseman Tate Kolwyck mashed a pair of home runs for the Commodores (15-2, 2-0 SEC), who have taken the first two of the three-game series. Isaiah Thomas added three hits and scored a run.
Carolina's Brannon Jordan (five innings, two runs, nine strikeouts) pitched well in defeat, using a high-spin, 91-mile-an-hour fastball that gave the Commodores trouble.
Leiter (5-0) walked the game's first hitter, then retired the next 27 in order. Leiter struck out Braylen Wimmer with a fastball that registered 97 on the scoreboard gun to end the game on his 124th pitch to end his first career complete game.
"I definitely think it means a lot, but it's a really fun experience for our whole team. ... I'm kind of just grateful for that, to be honest," Leiter said.
"First of all, our team needs to win, always, that's the most important piece," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. "But he did it against a very good, older-hitting offensive team. That's not easy to navigate through, any of those hitters. Those are big, strong kids who can hit fastballs. Yeah, to do that against a collection of talent and the fact that he can get through that ballgame--and 16 strikeouts, too. He didn't really share the ball too much.
"The whole performance, just special for the kid. But I'm still going to temper expectations going forward."
Excepting a 97-mile-per-hour fastball that struck out Wes Clarke swinging to end the first, there wasn't a lot right away to indicate Saturday would be special.
Leiter went 3-2 to Wimmer to start the game before walking him. After he struck out Brady Allen, Josiah Sigthler hit one hard to the gap in deep left-center that, if not for Enrique Bradfield Jr., may well have been a hit. But it hung up long enough for the speedy center fielder to range to his right and get it.
Part of the difficulty was that Leiter had trouble locating his breaking balls.
"The off-speed pitches weren't there to start off so I was trying to do so, and I would say a poorly-thrown off-speed pitch still has a purpose," Leiter said. "And that was kind of what we were going with for a while, because I couldn't really find a feel with a zone with those pitches. But that doesn't mean you don't still throw it, maybe slow their eyes down a little bit for a fastball situation.
"Yes, it was mixing up timing, but not as well as I would have liked."
But by the second inning, it was clear the Gamecocks couldn't touch his fastball--and that might be good enough. Leiter struck out David Mendham, Andrew Eyster and Brennan Milone with heaters registering 95, 94 and 97, respectively, on the stadium radar gun.
In the midst of that, Kolwyck homered over the bleachers in left-center off Jordan, scoring Parker Noland for the game's first runs.
In the third, Leiter struck out both Colin Burgess and Wimmer on 96-mile-an-hour fastballs In the fourth, the same happened with Sightler and Clarke.
A ground-out, a called-strike-three on the inner corner the knees on a 93-mile-an-hour fastball to Eyster and a fly ball to Cooper Davis in left got Leiter through the fifth.
In the sixth, doubt crept in as to whether Leiter would finish this. His fastball dipped to around 93 and the Gamecocks started to strike a few balls well, with one out coming on a liner to Jayson Gonzalez at third and another, a fly-ball out from George Callil.
By the end of the inning, he was at 90 pitches. And then came the mental battle of knowing what was at stake.
"I would say probably like the fifth or sixth inning, I started to realize I knew hadn't given up a hit," Leiter said. "The whole, 'Don't jinx it, don't think about it'--after that inning, kinda trying to convince my mind it doesn't matter. After that inning I'd look up and see the zero and say it's still the next pitch, it doesn't really matter what's going on.
"So kinda going backwards from ignoring it, I actually acknowledged it to myself and made sure I was just focused on the next pitch."
He was up to the challenge. Leiter dialed it up a notch in the seventh, striking out Sightler and Clarke with fastballs of 95 and 97, respectively, and wouldn't go to a three-ball count on a hitter again until the ninth.
"I think in the seventh inning, to me (key)," Corbin said. "The fourth fifth and sixth--strikeouts are expensive, they're like dog years on a pitch count," Corbin said. "You get in that situation there and you wonder about holding on to the game, No.1, and then when you get into the seventh, I thought yeah, you know, he might be able to get into the eighth.
"When he got into the eighth, it was a situation where we gave him a little bit of cushion, I thought his adrenaline was moving in the right direction. He was attacking the zone, which he needed to to stay in to the game.
In the eighth, he whiffed Mendham and Milone on 95-mile-an-hour fastballs. And that's when Corbin knew Leiter had a chance to go the distance.
"If he was frugal with his pitches, which he was, then he might be able to finish it," Corbin said.
Burgess milked the count for eight pitches before striking out on 95 looking. Callil lined a 97-mile-an-hour fastball to Davis in left on the first pitch. And then Wimmer went down on three pitches and it was over, Leiter pumping his fist after his last pitch as teammates streamed out of the dugout to join him on the mound.
"I'd say there was a little of that, the adrenaline and kind of pushing through," Leiter said. "But I hadn't gone that far. I probably hadn't thrown that many pitches my whole life. So having not experienced that, it kind of got easier as things went on in a way, I guess because I had such a good feel for the mound because I'd been throwing on it for a while now.
"And everything just kind of felt normal mechanically. I was just thinking 'me and the glove' and stayed directional to the catcher. Yeah, I was getting after it a little more in that last inning. But that's natural, that happens. The velocity will fluctuate throughout the game."
Kolwyck hit a home run in the eighth, scoring Rodriguez. Thomas tripled and came around on Bradfield's sacrifice fly. All the damage came off Carolina reliever Parker Coyne.
Leiter ended the day with a 0.31 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 29 innings. Opponents are hitting .076 off him and don't have an extra-base hit this season.
The teams wrap up a three-game series at Hawkins Field at 1 Central on Sunday.
