ROCK HILL, SC— Winthrop softball heads to nationally-ranked South Carolina for a midweek contest Wednesday evening in its final preparation before opening league play this coming weekend. The game was originally scheduled for 6 p.m. but has been moved up to 3 p.m. start.
 
WHERE: Columbia, SC (Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field)
WHEN: Wednesday, Mar. 6, 3 p.m. 
RECORDS: Winthrop (9-8) | #11/13 South Carolina (17-2)
LIVE STATS: Statbroadcast (click here)
LIVE VIDEO: none
FOLLOW: @Winthropsoftbal 
 
SERIES HISTORY VERSUS SOUTH CAROLINA

• The Eagles and Gamecocks have met 69 times with South Carolina leading the all-time series 58-10-1
• South Carolina has won 10 straight meetings as Winthrop's last win in the series came Feb. 16, 2011 (5-2)
• The two teams met earlier this season at the Charlotte First Pitch Classic as the Gamecocks won 15-1

GLANCE AT THE EAGLES

• Have won two of the last three games and coming off a 19-0 victory at East Carolina on Mar. 3
• It was the first game scoring at least 19 runs since Feb. 7, 2015 in a 19-5 win over Coppin State
• Brooke Ellison is coming off a week where she led the team with six RBI in five games and had a slugging percentage of .867 and on-base percentage of .563
• Ellison is riding a five-game hitting streak and has multiple hits in three of the last four games
• On the year she's batting .365, which ranks 12^th in the Big South
• Morgan Lowers leads the team with a .456 average, which ranks 2^nd in the Big South
• Lowers has a team-high 17 RBI and is second in runs scored with 14
• There are six starters batting .300 or better as the Eagles are batting .305 as a team
• Before the big win over ECU, the Eagles were involved in three straight one-run games
• The win over ECU was the 250^th Division I win for coach Windy Thees

HEAD COACH WINDY THEES

• Head coach Windy Thees is in her first year at Winthrop and in her 15^th season as head coach of a collegiate softball program
• Spent five seasons at Georgia State & College compiling a 163-92 record followed by six years at Memphis (172-151) and three seasons at Ole Miss (69-94)
• In her 15 seasons she's compiled an overall record of 413-345 and a record of 250-253 at the helm of a D1 program
• Led Ole Miss to five wins over nationally-ranked opponents that included a 2-0 victory at #1 Florida in 2014
• In 2003 she led Georgia State & College to a runner-up finish in the Division II National Championship
• Thees was a four-year starter at Florida State as both a catcher and second baseman. 

SCHEDULE

• Eagles have 10 opponents that finished in the Top 100 RPI in 2018 and seven in the Top 75
• There are three opponents that made an NCAA Regional, 11 teams that finished in the Top 3 of their respective conference and five of which played in a conference championship game
• Winthrop had two opponents in the preseason Top 10 with Georgia at 6^th and South Carolina tied for 9^th 
• In the latest national polls, Georgia is ranked 8/8 while South Carolina is ranked 11/13
• Coastal Carolina received votes in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 Poll

EAGLES AMONG NATIONAL LEADERS

• There are a few players ranked among the national leaders with Brooke Ellison's triples being the highest ranking at 2^nd (Cydney Curman of CSU Bakersfield leads the nation with five)
• Ellison ranks 9^th in triples per game while teammate Morgan Lowers is 11^th in triples and 35^th in triples per game
• Lowers is also ranked 27^th in total bases as she leads the Big South in that category
• Keleigh Romine is ranked 29^th nationally in walks and also leads the Big South
• Tori Walker has seven doubles on the season, which ranks 22^nd nationally
• Lowers is also ranked 33^rd in total hits

ROMINE NAMED BIG SOUTH PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Keleigh Romine was named the Big South Conference Player of the Week on Feb. 11. Romine had an impressive opening weekend as she led the team in batting at .571 and tied for team-high eight hits. She had an impressive on-base percentage of .714 and reached base in all five games. Romine began the weekend 2-for-2 with a run, RBI and two walks in the season opening win over Savannah State. In the third game of the weekend she started in the circle and allowed no runs on three hits with two walks and six strikeouts to earn the win. In the same game she had an RBI single in the 3^rd inning for a 1-0 lead. Against Georgia Southern she tied a career-best of three hits to help the Eagles earn a 10-7 win over the host of the tournament. She got the Eagles in front in the first inning with an RBI single to right center and tied the game at 4-4 later on a ground rule double.

BIG SOUTH PRESEASON POLL
Winthrop was picked to finish 7^th in the Big South Conference despite returning all but one starter and its entire pitching staff. Longwood was picked to finish first, edging out newcomer USC Upstate by eight votes as the favorite. Radford was picked third followed by Campbell, Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Winthrop, Hampton and Presbyterian College.
 
UP NEXT
This is the last tune-up for the Eagles as they'll open Big South play this weekend at Campbell. The team's will play a doubleheader on Saturday, Mar. 9 beginning at 1 p.m. and will wrap-up the series Sunday, Mar. 10 at 1:30 p.m.