ROCK HILL, SC—The Winthrop softball team is coming off a 5-2 win at South Carolina on Wednesday as it heads to Athens, GA this weekend for the 8th Annual Georgia Softball Classic.
The Eagles are 3-2 on the year and look to improve on that as they will open up the weekend with games on Friday against North Dakota State at 1 p.m. and second-ranked Georgia at 5 p.m. Winthrop will face Buffalo at 5 p.m. and North Carolina State at 7 p.m. on Saturday, ending the weekend with an 11 a.m. matchup against Marshall on Sunday.
Winthrop opens up with a 1-4 North Dakota State squad that is coming off a 2-1 win over Central Florida. It is the first ever meeting between the two schools. Winthrop will then face a familiar foe in the University of Georgia, who are 5-0 on the year and ranked second in the NFCA Top 25 and fourth in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 poll. Buffalo enters with an 0-5 record with losses to Kansas twice and North Carolina. The Wolfpack are 2-3 on the season after opening in Tampa, FL at the USF
Wilson-DeMarini Tournament while Marshall is 2-3 as well.
So far this season Winthrop has hit the ball well as a team, sporting a .331 average through five games. Sophomore Teja Durante is off to a hot start with a .600 average and has started all five games. She is tied for the team lead with four runs and has a .900 slugging percentage. Chelsey Schoenfeldt has been ripping the ball so far as she's hitting .538 and already has three extra base hits. Starters Veronica Berrie and Taylor Wright have also gotten off to a good start at the plate hitting .500 and .438 respectively.
One of the most notable starts to the season is the bat of senior Brittany Stoudemire. The past three season Stoudemire has played sparingly in the field and been used primarily as a pinch-hitter, which she did a good job at. She's started all five games this year and has a team-best six RBI while batting .308.
Pitching has been up and down so far this season with an experienced staff, but freshman Natalie Becker has turned in a couple of impressive performances. She had a career-best 11 strikeouts in the win over Coastal Carolina and turned right around and pitched a complete game in the victory at South Carolina on Wednesday. So far she's recorded 25 strikeouts in 16.1 innings with nine walks and is 2-0 on the year.
After the win on Wednesday, head coach Mark Cooke now has 596 victories as head coach of the Lady Eagles and could possibly reach the 600 mark over the weekend. In his career, Cooke has 682 victories in 26 seasons.
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