ROCK HILL, SC—Fresh off a doubleheader sweep of Gardner-Webb the Winthrop softball team heads to North Charleston, SC for a three-game series with Charleston Southern beginning with a doubleheader on Friday, Apr. 3 at 2 p.m.
The doubleheader was originally scheduled for Saturday but the forecast of rain forced the adjustment. The final game of the series is schedule for Saturday at 1 p.m. Winthrop is 14-19 after its two wins on Wednesday and improved to 3-5 in the Big South. Charleston Southern enters the weekend with a 24-15 record overall and is 6-3 in the league.
Winthrop and Charleston Southern have met 95 times with the Eagles leading the series 68-27 all-time. The Eagles have only faced Coastal Carolina (107) more times than the Buccaneers. Last season the Eagles dropped the series with the Buccaneers at home as they avoided a sweep with a 9-0 win in the final game. The Eagles have won five of the last seven meetings and the teams have each won four series since the league moved to three-game series in 2007.
Pitching, solid defense and timely hitting led the Eagles to their two wins over Gardner-Webb on Wednesday. After committing six errors last weekend at Coastal Carolina, the Eagles were error free against the Runnin' Bulldogs. The combination of senior's
Sara Allen and
Sutton Watson along with junior
Dallas King held Gardner-Webb's offense in check and combined to allow four runs on 13 hits with seven walks and 14 strikeouts in 18 innings.
Allen is 7-6 on the year with a 4.46 ERA as she's had 57 strikeouts to 48 walks in 84.2 innings. Watson is 3-5 on the year with a 3.79 ERA and 50 strikeouts to 19 walks in 61 innings. Watson also has a team-high three saves, the most by an Eagle since current Winthrop assistant coach
Cari Moore had five in 2009. King earned both of the wins on Wednesday and is now 3-8 on the year with a 3.17 ERA and 50 strikeouts to 28 walks in 64 innings of work.
Senior
Kelsey Ritter's two-run home run in the sixth inning of the first game against Gardner-Webb broke a streak of 21 scoreless innings for the Eagles. Ritter supplied three RBI in the 4-3 victory and now leads the team with 23. Sophomore
Maddie Antone is second on the team with 20 RBI and was a welcome return Wednesday after missing six straight games. The second-year shortstop was 2-for-5 with two runs and drew two walks as she is now batting a team-high .388. Ritter is batting .284 on the year as her home run was the fourth of the season and 17
th of her career. She became the 29
th player in school history to reach 60 RBI in a career.
Freshman
K.J. Uyeno earned three walks on Wednesday and has a team-high 20 on the year to lead the team with an on-base percentage of.509. She's ranked fourth in the league in total walks and first in walks per game (.83) even though she missed the first nine games of the season.
Charleston Southern enters the series ranked 5
th in the league in batting while it ranks second in pitching. The Bucs are second in the league with 47 home runs and lead the league in extra-base hits with 95.
Amanda Matsumoto leads the team with a .424 average, which ranks third in the Big South. The outfielder has scored a league-most 37 runs and has 16 stolen bases. Cheyenne Gandara is one of the best all-around hitters in the Big South as she is batting .398 with 29 runs, six doubles, 15 home runs and 48 RBI. Second on the team in RBI is Marci Christian with 34 and she as well has 15 homers.
Gandara is also the top pitcher on the team as she's 14-8 with a 2.68 ERA and 150 strikeouts to 37 walks in 130.2 innings. She leads the league in wins, strikeouts, innings pitched, and appearances. Jennifer Giles is 15-8 with a 3.50 ERA with 66 strikeouts to 50 walks in 98 innings.
The Bucs are coming off a series sweep at Campbell this past week and have won four of the last five games. So far they have earned series wins over Gardner-Webb and Campbell while dropping a series 2-1 at Radford last weekend.
