April 23, 2005
Oxford, Miss. – South Carolina softball finally snapped a 12-game winless streak Saturday night as the Gamecocks defeated Ole Miss 5-2 in game two of the doubleheader. The win marked the first for USC since April 3. With the win, USC splits the doubleheader and improved to 25-25-1 and 8-15 in the SEC. Ole Miss fell to 26-24 and 6-16 in the SEC.
Aleca Johnson (5-7) recorded the victory for USC as she allowed two runs on five hits in seven innings pitched and had seven strikeouts. Dana Brill (8-8) took the loss for the Rebels and gave up five runs on 11 hits in seven innings pitched.
Three Gamecock hitters recorded multi-hit games as Lisa Longo went 3-for-4 with two runs and Ashley Smith and McKenna Hughes both went 2-for-4 with one run and one run batted in respectively.
The Rebels hit two solo home runs off of Johnson to record their two runs. Senior catcher DeDe Justice hit her eighth of the year when she launched a long ball to left center field to lead off the second inning. Shortstop Chloe Kloezeman hit her third of the year in the sixth inning and brought Ole Miss to within one run of tying.
The Gamecocks were down 1-0 going into the fourth before Longo scored on an error by Rebecca McIntire and tied the game 1-1. In the sixth, USC found a spark and tacked on two more runs when Ashley Smith doubled to left field to lead off and Longo followed with a single for back-to-back hits. Becky Martinez then singled and drove in Smith’s pinch runner Whitney Wierzbicki and Longo and the Gamecocks took their first lead in 12 games, 3-1.
Kloeseman’s home run in the bottom of the sixth provided the Rebels their second run of the game and cut USC’s lead to one but with one out, Johnson and the USC defense was able to hold back Ole Miss with a strikeout and a pop up and got out of the inning without anymore runs.
The Gamecocks added two more cushion runs in the top of the seventh when Josker scored on an error by Kloezeman and Smith hit and RBI double to drive home Hughes and USC went up 5-3.
Johnson returned in the bottom half of the seventh and struck out the first batter before Callahan singled to reach safely. A foul out by Brooke Turner and a groundout by Brittany Warner provided the final two outs of the game and sealed the win for the Gamecocks.
The victory snapped the longest winless streak in Gamecock history at 12 games. The deciding game of the series is scheduled for 1 p.m. (ET) on Sunday.
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South Carolina…… 000 102 2 – 5 11 1 (25-25-1, 6-16)
Ole Miss………… 010 001 0 – 2 5 2 (26-24, 8-15)
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Win-A. Johnson(5-7) Loss-D. Brill(8-8)
