April 24, 2007
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina softball team’s bats were silenced Tuesday night by the 22nd-ranked Florida Gators as the Gamecocks were held to just one hit in game two of the Tuesday doubleheader. The Gamecocks were scoreless for 14 total innings after falling in game two 10-0 to hand the Gators the sweep. With the loss, South Carolina falls to 32-18 and 10-12 in the SEC and Florida improves to 39-18 and 12-10.
Jacqueline Wetherbee recorded the lone hit for South Carolina and Kate Pouliot (14-5) took the loss. For the Gators, three players posted multi-hit games, led by Ali Gardiner, who went 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Pouliot gave up seven runs on 11 hits in 6.0 innings pitched, including two home runs. Wetherbee’s hit came in the second inning when she hit a two-out single, giving the Gamecocks four total hits on the day.
The Gators jumped on the Gamecocks early as they took a 1-0 lead in the first after Kim Waleszonia led off with a walk, advanced to second on a pass ball, then made it to third on a sacrifice. Waleszonia scored on an RBI single by Gardiner.
The Gamecocks were able to contain Florida for two innings before the Gators struck again. In the fourth, Gardiner scored on a sac fly by Melissa Zick and UF went up 2-0. Florida’s big inning came in the fifth when they scored four runs and pounded out a 6-0 lead. Waleszonia hit a three-run home run with one out for three RBI and Brooke Johnson hit a single up the middle to score Gardiner for the fourth run of the inning.
The scoring continued in the sixth and Lacy Howard added more salt to the wound when she hit a solo shot to lead off the inning and put the Gators up 7-0. Pouliot did get out of the without anymore damage as she retired the next three batters with a fly out, a ground out and a strikeout.
In the seventh, junior Whitney Wierzbicki made her pitching debut as she came in to pitch for Pouliot. Florida added their final three runs of the game when Mary Ratliff blasted a three-run home run off of Wierzbicki to extend the lead to 10-0. In one inning pitched, Wierzbicki gave up three runs on two hits, two walks and a strikeout.
For the day, the Gamecocks gave up a total of 18 runs on 26 hits, the most all season for a series. South Carolina’s four hits is the second lowest this season. The least number of hits the Gamecocks have been held to in a series is three, which was recorded against No. 1 Tennessee.
With the loss, the Gamecocks fall to 6-4 against SEC East teams. South Carolina returns to the road this weekend and travel to Auburn for their final conference road series of the season. The Gamecocks will wrap up the regular season May 5-6 when they host the Ole Miss Rebels.
Florida 10, South Carolina 0 (Apr 24, 2007 at Columbia, S.C.) (Game 2)
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Florida…………. 100 141 3 – 10 13 0 (39-18, 12-10)
South Carolina…… 000 000 0 – 0 1 0 (32-18, 10-12)
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Pitchers: Florida – STACEY NELSON. South Carolina – Kate Pouliot; Whitney Wierzbicki(7).
Win-STACEY NELSON(25-11) Loss-Kate Pouliot(14-5) T-1:44 A-320
HR UF – KIM WALESZONIA (3); MARY RATLIFF (4); LACY HOWARD (5).
