South Carolina beat Liberty 3-2 on Sunday at Founders Park, to take the opening series of the season.

Luke Berryhill scored the game-winning run in the ninth after Quinntin Perez swung and missed on a wild pitch by Liberty reliever Garret Price (0-1). The Gamecocks' celebration was abruptly delayed when umpires conferred to review the play, to see if Perez was hit by the pitch, but it stood as called.

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"That catcher for them is tremendous," South Carolina coach Mark Kingston said. "He blocked everything for them all weekend and finally at the end, I guess the dam broke a little bit, because he did a tremendous job all weekend, but I think the key for that was Berryhill going first to third, after a tremendous at-bat to leadoff. … I just thought Luke going first to third was probably the play of the game and allowed that to be the game-winner."

The Gamecocks came back to clinch the series after dropping the opener on Friday night, which the Flames won on a wild pitch.

"Guys showed a lot of heart," Berryhill said of the weekend, "Battling with two strikes, running the pitch count up, taking walks. Whatever needed to be done, we got it done a lot of the time."

Freshman reliever Brett Kerry (1-0) was perfect in the eighth and ninth innings with three strikeouts on Sunday. He helped closed things down after South Carolina gave up a pair of runs in the first inning.

A couple of two-out, defensive miscues led to Liberty's first inning lead. Logan Mathieu singled off Jacob Olson’s glove at third before coming around to score when Drew Baughman doubled off Ray Tanner’s number on the leftfield wall. Brady Allen, who tried to make the squeeze, could have played the ball off the wall and possibly prevented Mathieu from scoring. Baughman came around to score when Olson overthrew Josiah Sightler at first.

Kerry, who also worked a scoreless inning on Saturday, will take on more of a bullpen role moving forward.

"Ever since he got back this spring, came back with a renewed vigor, I think," Kingston said. "After the fall, we challenged him that he needed to be better than what we'd seen up to that point and he came back with a chip on his shoulder. That's good to see. When you challenge guys, you want to see how they react and he's been good all spring and two great outings this first weekend."

South Carolina began its attempt to salvage the weekend in the fourth inning when T.J. Hopkins smashed a 1-0 pitch into the bleachers in leftfield, to cut Liberty's lead to 2-1. The Gamecocks drew even in the fifth when Noah Campbell drove in Andrew Eyster, who ledoff the inning with a single off the rightfield wall.

Reid Morgan was then off the hook for the decision, when he was pulled before the start of the seventh. Only one of the two runs allowed was earned and he finished with three strikeouts and no walks. Liberty batters combined for six hits off South Carolina's junior righty.

"Today was just another day," Morgan said. "I treat it like a scrimmage. It's one of those things, you come out and work, work fast and get ahead in the count, and just do what I do. It was nice to do what I did."

Hayden Lehman picked up the first two outs in the seventh before John Gilreath won the lefty-lefty matchup with Liberty’s leadoff man Jonathan Embry, who went 0-for-4 on the day. The junior catcher had three hits in the first two games of the series.

Berryhill, who was behind the plate for the Gamecocks on Sunday, was able to advance from first to third in the ninth after Olson was unable to get a sacrifice bunt down. Olson certainly made up for it with his single up the middle.

"That's what coach is preaching to the guys that can run," Berryhill said, "If the outfielder is deep enough, to take the (extra) base, then do it."

South Carolina returns to action on Tuesday against Winthrop. First-pitch from Founders Park is set for 4:30 p.m. Presbyterian is due in on Wednesday before a weekend series against Utah Valley.

"We'll look at everything. We'll see from a pitch-count standpoint who's available," Kingston said. "Tuesdays and Wednesdays this year might be a lot of different guys. You see when we bring our bullpen guys in for one or two innings at a time, they all seem to be really good in that role, so we're going to decide what the best way to try to have the best success on those Tuesday and Wednesday nights are."