Gamecocks Continue On The Road At Florida
April 12, 2018
No. 11 South Carolina at No. 6 Florida
COLUMBIA, S.C. – No. 11 South Carolina continues its road trip this weekend with a key three-game series against No. 6 Florida starting Friday night at 6:00 PM ET. All three games will be on SEC Network Plus while live stats will be on gamecocksonline.com.
How to Follow
All three games will be on SEC Network Plus while live stats will be on gamecocksonline.com and social media. Updates will be provided throughout the games on Twitter (@GamecockSoftbll).
The upcoming weekend
The Gamecocks (No. 11/12) hit the road for a four-game road trip that started Wednesday in Rock Hill, S.C., with a 7-0 win over Winthrop. Following that game, the Gamecocks close the week at No. 6 Florida in a battle between two top-3 SEC teams starting Friday at 6:00 PM ET.
Carolina comes into the weekend with an impressive 34-7 record, including an 8-4 mark in SEC play. Carolina earned win No. 34 on the year Wednesday with a commanding 7-0 win over Winthrop. Dixie Raley led the way in the circle while a pair of early home runs paced the Carolina offense.
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 41 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 218-77 (+141) through 41 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 218 runs. The trio has combined for 81 (37 percent) of Carolina’s runs scored and 78 (38 percent) of all RBI on the season. Throw in Cayla Drotar and Jana Johns (who routinely hit in the four and five spots, and those numbers jump to 112 runs (51 percent) and 125 (60 percent).
