ROCK HILL, SC—Following a seven-day break, the Winthrop softball team will be back in action on Wednesday, Mar. 18 when it hosts South Carolina at 6 p.m. on Terry Field.
The Eagles are 6-4 in their last 10 games and enter the game with an 11-13 mark while the Gamecocks enter with a 20-9 record.
Winthrop last played on Mar. 10 as it dropped a competitive doubleheader to James Madison, which received votes in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches Top 25 poll last week and has won eight straight.
James Madison is just one of Winthrop's nine opponents on the year that sport a winning record. Winthrop head coach
Mark Cooke has always tested his team before league play starts and this year is no different. Of the nine teams with winning records, five of them have 15 or more wins and four of them have 20 or more. The Gamecocks will become Winthrop's fifth opponent with 20 or more wins.
South Carolina is the last test for the Eagles before they open up league play this weekend in a three-game series that begins on Friday, Mar. 20.
Since allowing a season-high 15 runs at 17
th-ranked Auburn, Winthrop's pitching has been one of the team's strengths with a team ERA of 2.56. Over those 14 games, the Eagles have used three pitchers pretty evenly as junior
Dallas King has tossed 31.1 innings, senior
Sara Allen has tossed 29.1 innings and senior
Sutton Watson has thrown 28 innings. King has a team-best ERA of 0.67 over that span but is not likely to see action against South Carolina as she's been out with an injury. King is currently ranked 2
nd among Big South Conference pitchers with a 2.25 ERA on the season. Watson is 2-2 with a 2.25 ERA over her last six appearances while Allen is 3-2 with a 4.53 ERA and the two have combined for 38 strikeouts to 14 walks (47.1 innings).
The offense for the Eagles has slowed down a bit but that can be expected facing quality competition. Winthrop is currently batting .275 as a team but .265 in the last 14 games. The first 10 games of the season the Eagles averaged 6.6 runs per game but are scoring 4.4 in the last 14. The Eagles lead the Big South with 39 doubles and eight triples. Winthrop is ranked third among league teams with 57 extra base hits.
Sophomore
Maddie Antone leads the offense with a .390 batting average and is ranked among the Top 5 in the Big South in hits (30), runs (23), doubles (9), RBI (20), and total bases (48). While Antone has led the team with 11 runs and 12 RBI over the last 14 games, sophomore
Paige Haley has the best batting average in that span at .395. Haley took over the leadoff role against Auburn for the first time in her brief Winthrop career. Haley has been exactly what the Eagles needed at the top of the order as she has 10 runs, a double, two triples, five RBI and an on-base percentage of .469 in that spot.
Freshman
K.J. Uyeno was hurt the first couple of weeks but has worked her way into the starting lineup and is making an impact. Uyeno is batting .357 over the last 14 games with eight runs and an on-base percentage of .615. Her 11 walks in 15 games are 10
th among Big South players. Senior
Kelsey Ritter is fifth on the team in batting at .313 but second in RBI with 18.
This will be the 56
th meeting all-time between Winthrop and South Carolina. The series favors the Gamecocks with a 46-8-1 advantage. The last time these two teams met was Apr. 15, 2014 in Columbia as the Gamecocks won 4-2, breaking a 2-2 tie with the winning run in the fourth and an insurance run in the sixth. The last six meetings have gone to South Carolina as the Eagles last win came on Feb. 16, 2011 behind a two-run triple from Teja Durante in the sixth inning.
The Gamecocks have won three of their last four games and are coming off a series win at home against Tennessee. South Carolina suffered a home series sweep at the hands of Missouri prior to the series win over the Volunteers but are winners of nine of its last 13 games. Against Big South teams this season the Gamecocks are 5-0 and have outscored them 44-13.
South Carolina, which is ranked 27
th by the USA Today/NFCA Coaches Top 25 after receiving 26 votes on Tuesday, is batting .293 as a team. The offense is led by junior Alaynie Page as she is batting .408. The leadoff hitter has a team-high 29 runs, 34 RBI and 11 home runs. Her 11 home runs are sixth nationally and she's 17
th in RBI. Senior Kristen Struett is tied for second on the team with 15 RBI as she's batting .358 on the year with two doubles, two triples and three home runs. Senior Sarah Mooney has 15 RBI on the year and is tied for second on the team with four home runs. The Gamecocks have seven different players with 10 or more RBI as the team averages 5.4 runs per game.
Sophomore Nickie Blue and redshirt senior Julie Sarratt have each made 14 starts in the circle this season. Blue is ranked 13
th nationally with an ERA of 1.01 and is 11-4 with 99 strikeouts to 33 walks in 111 innings. Sarratt is 9-4 on the year with a 3.84 ERA and has 53 strikeouts to 26 walks in 78.1 innings. Sarratt threw a complete game allowing one earned run on five hits with a walk and five strikeouts against the Eagles in last year's meeting.
