Carolina Hits The Road For Winthrop
April 10, 2018
No. 11 South Carolina at Winthrop
COLUMBIA, S.C. – No. 11 South Carolina hits the road this week for four games, starting with Winthrop in Rock Hill, S.C., on Wednesday at 6:00 PM ET.
How to Follow
There will not be a live stream for Wednesday night’s game, but fans can follow along with live stats. Live stats will be provided on gamecocksonline.com while updates will be provided on Twitter (@GamecockSoftbll).
The upcoming week
The Gamecocks (No. 11/12) hit the road for a four-game road trip starting Wednesday in Rock Hill, S.C., to face Winthrop at 6:00 PM ET. Following that game, the Gamecocks will close the week at No. 6 Florida in a battle between two top-3 SEC teams.
Carolina comes into the week with an impressive 33-7 record, including an 8-4 mark in SEC play. Carolina earned win No. 33 on the year Sunday to take the series over No. 20 Arkansas.
Carolina is set to be on TV for the 23rd-25th time this season with the Florida series.
South Carolina’s opponents for the week came in with a combined 49-26 record. The series against Florida will be the 16th-18th time Carolina will face a ranked opponent. This will be the first time in the last four times this year the Gamecocks will not be the higher ranked team in a ranked game.
Another series win… This time it’s Arkansas
The Gamecocks came into the weekend looking to make history and did just that. Carolina earned its third SEC series win over a ranked opponent with the victory over the Razorbacks, marking the first time ever the Gamecocks have done so.
At the plate, Kenzi Maguire and Mackenzie Boesel led the way. Maguire posted a .400 batting average with a run while Boesel finished with a .300 batting average with a run scored and a team-high three RBI.
In the circle, it was the Cayla Drotar show as she posted a 0.70 ERA with two SEC wins in 10 innings of work.
The series win marked the six-straight for the Gamecocks over Arkansas and the third in four tries this season. The victories kept Carolina in third-place in the SEC Standings up to this point, only behind Florida and Georgia. Carolina also tied last season’s win total in conference play with eight.
What a year… Some big points
Carolina has achieved some major highpoints just 40 games into the 2018 season. The first came early in the year, when the Gamecocks posted a 17-game winning streak, marking the longest streak of its kind since 1997.
With the 17-game victory streak, Carolina got off to its best 20-game start in program history with 19 wins. Nine of those wins came at home at Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field.
SEC Player of the Week… Again!
For her performance last week, South Carolina softball’s Kenzi Maguire has been named SEC Player of the Week, the conference office announced today. Maguire posted an impressive .500 batting average in four games to help the Gamecocks to their third SEC conference series win over a ranked opponent.
Maguire is the third Gamecock to be recognized by the conference office this season after Jana Johns was named SEC Freshman of the Week on Feb. 26 and Tiara Duffy was named SEC Player of the Week on March 27. The sophomore is just the 13th Gamecock ever to be named SEC Player of the Week.
Starting strong in the polls
Released on March 19, Carolina opened up at No. 14 in the first RPI Poll. With the most recent poll coming out on April 10, the Gamecocks find themselves at No. 10 after a series win over No. 20 Arkansas this past weekend.
Carolina sits at No. 3 in the SEC standings thus far through 12 conference games, only behind Florida and Georgia. Carolina was picked to finish 10th in the league in the preseason poll. The Gamecock have never finished higher than 8th since the conference moved away from divisions in 2014.
Runs! Runs! Runs!
Carolina hasn’t been hurting in offense this season, as that side of the ball has outscored opponents 211-77 (+134) through 40 games. A deeper look into that, on average the Gamecocks are outscoring teams 5.97-1.88 thus far.
The one, two, three batters in the lineup (Maguire, Boesel and VanDerveer) have been the driving force behind the 211 runs. The trio has combined for 78 (37 percent) of Carolina’s runs scored and 76 (38 percent) of all RBI on the season.
