Feb. 14, 2010
The 2010 South Carolina softball team made a statement in its debut, breaking out offensively with 17 hits in an 11-3 win over Coastal Carolina at Beckham Field on Sunday during the abbreviated Palmetto State Showdown.
Junior Laura Mendes and senior Lindsay Walker both had two doubles, accounting for half of the Gamecocks’ total of eight in the game. Mendes, junior P.J. Fulmer and sophomore Evan Childs all had three hits, while that trio as well as Walker all drove in two runs. Senior Adele Voigt, Mendes and Fulmer all scored a pair of runs. Eight of the nine Gamecock hitters got hits, while another eight scored a run. Michelle Evans paced the Chanticleers (2-1) with two doubles.
As the visiting team in the game, the Gamecocks (1-0) jumped out to a 7-0 advantage before the Chanticleers even got a chance. The first five in the Carolina order reached on base hits, while four Gamecocks had doubles in the frame. Five different players drove in a run, including two by Mendes.
Coastal Carolina got one back in the bottom of the first on Michelle Evans’ RBI double. But the Gamecocks came back with three in the second, coming on RBI doubles by Fulmer, Childs and Walker. South Carolina wrapped up the scoring in the third on a Fulmer single. Coastal tried to extend the game in the fifth with Stacy Snelling’s two-run blast, but a groundout to second ended the frame and the game at 11-3.
Junior Ashley Chastain got the complete-game win, scattering seven hits, two walks and three earned runs in her five innings of work. She fanned four. Megan Johnson took the loss, allowing six earned runs in just 0.2 innings.
The 17 hits for South Carolina are the most for the squad since March 5, 2005, when the Gamecocks got 20 against South Dakota State. Making their debut in the Garnet and Black were junior April Borchardt and freshman Briana Hamilton. Borchardt went 2-for-3 with a run scored, while Hamilton had a hit in three trips to the plate.
Due to the snow wreaking havoc with the schedule that kept one team from even competing and all others from getting in a full weekend, there will be no official winner of this first Palmetto State Showdown.
