Gamecocks Take Down Duke With Complete Performance From Lineup
March 20, 2018
COLUMBIA, S.C. –No. 15 South Carolina used a four-run fifth inning to propel itself to a 6-1 win over Duke on Tuesday night at Carolina Softball at Beckham Field. Mackenzie Boesel and Cayla Drotar hits paired with a Blue Devil error gave the Gamecocks four runs and a 5-1 lead through five as Carolina improved to 11-0 at home on the season.
Carolina took an early 1-0 lead after three thanks to Kenzi Maguire‘s RBI-single to score Tiara Duffy from second. Duke tied it at 1-1 in the fourth before the four-run fifth for the Gamecocks while Maguire drove home Kamryn Watts in the sixth to make it 6-1 Gamecocks heading to the seventh.
Four different Gamecocks drove home runs on the night, while Cayla Drotar and Maguire both finished with two RBI. Duffy posted her first multi-hit performance of the year with a 2-for-3 night with three runs.
“I was really proud of Tiara Duffy,” head coach Beverly Smith said. “She had an aggressive at-bat and gave us a lead-off double in the fifth. Kamryn Watts came up and turned the lineup over and any time the bottom part of our lineup can turn it over it’s going to be a good day for us. I was really proud of the production from our bottom part of the lineup.”
The key moment of the night came at the plate for South Carolina (25-4, 2-1 SEC) in the bottom of the fifth. Drotar stepped to the plate with two outs and scored two with a shot down the left field line and made it 5-1 Gamecocks, effectively taking all the momentum not already in the hands of Carolina.
Dixie Raley (7-1) posted another strong outing in the circle, going all seven innings while allowing just four hits to go along with her four strikeouts.
Notes —
With the win tonight, Carolina improved to 25-4 (2-1 SEC) on the year and has still not lost consecutive games all season.
Kenzi Maguire has been killing it at the plate her last 10 games, batting .294 with 10 hits and a team-best 16 RBI. She’s posted a .316 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging percentage.
Carolina earned the series win over Ole Miss with the win this weekend. This was Carolina’s first SEC road series win since the Gamecocks took down No. 22 Georgia in Athens, Ga., last year. This was also the second-straight time the Gamecocks took the series in Oxford.
Head coach Beverly Smith moved to 252-182 after the Duke win. She is the second-winningest coach in school history.
Up next — Carolina returns home for a big three-game series against No. 2 Tennessee for its SEC home-opening set starting Friday at 6:00 PM ET. Live stats will be on gamecocksonline.com while the game will be streamed on SEC Network Plus.
