April 19, 2018
2018 NCEA Championship Day #2
WACO, Texas — The University of South Carolina equestrian team fell to Georgia on Thursday, 11-4, in the quarterfinals of the 2018 NCEA Championship main draw. Sophomore Caroline Gute led the way for the Gamecocks, winning points in both horsemanship and reining.
The loss drops Carolina to 4-11 on the season. Despite being eliminated from the team championship portion of the event, the Gamecocks are still alive in the race for the equitation on the flat, equitation over fences and reining single-event titles.
Georgia won three of the four points in the first event of the day, horsemanship. Gute tallied the lone Gamecock victory, a 138.5-136 win over Samantha Johnson on Whiz. Equitation on the flat ran simultaneously, with the Bulldogs securing all four points to take a 7-1 lead at halftime.
Despite the deficit, Carolina worked hard to mount a comeback by taking the first two points in reining. Gute was a 143-136.5 winner over Jordan Carpenter on Hannah, and Bailey Walters defeated Graysen Stroud on Cowboy, 141-139.5, to cut the gap to 7-3.
But the Bulldogs won the final two reining points plus two points in equitation over fences to earn an 11-4 win. Carolina’s jumping victory came from Madison Sellman, a 166-158 winner on Vivaldi over Ali Tritschler. Lizzie van der Walde earned a 159-all draw in her matchup, riding Maddy Darst on Converse.
NOTABLE
• Gute is now 4-0 at the 2018 NCEA Championship. She also won her horsemanship and reining points Wednesday in the first round of single-event action.
• In addition to her 2-0 day, Gute was the high-point scorer with her 143 tally in reining.
• Walters is also undefeated at the NCEA Championship; she’s 2-0 in reining after also winning her matchup yesterday against TCU.
FROM THE COACH
“I think our team rode well today. We certainly had a mistake here or there, but I think our team still has a lot of confidence. We can take a lot away from what we did today. I think we had some strong rides today. I think we will take that into tomorrow. We’ve got to continue to ride better. I think in some cases, we rode better today than we did yesterday. In some cases, I think our horses were more difficult today than yesterday. In some cases they weren’t but again, we’ve just got to continue to build over the days that we have left. The fun part is that we have multiple days, and that’s what I really love. Even though we got knocked out of the team competition today, we’re continuing on in the event competition tomorrow with our two hunt seat teams and our reining team. I’m really looking forward to the competition tomorrow; we can get out there and go at it again.”– Head Coach Boo Major
UP NEXT FOR THE GAMECOCKS
Carolina competes in the equitation on the flat, equitation over fences and reining single-event quarterfinals on Friday in Waco. The Gamecocks face Auburn in jumping and Georgia in reining; both quarterfinals begin at 8:30 a.m. CT with semifinals immediately following should the Gamecocks advance.
South Carolina’s equitation on the flat quarterfinal against Auburn begins at 1:30 p.m. CT, and semifinals start after the conclusion of the quarterfinal matchup.
