Gamecocks Earn Series Opening Win Against Mississippi State
Carolina now looks to weekend for key SEC series win
COLUMBIA, S.C. —- South Carolina softball’s Katie Prebble delivered with a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh to propel the Gamecocks to an 8-7 victory over Mississippi State on Friday night at Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field. With runners on first and second and no outs, Prebble deposited a hard-hit ball to left field to allow Riley Blampied to score from second and give South Carolina a key conference victory heading toward the end of the regular season.
Leah Powell (9-3) earned the win in the circle. She went 3.2 innings in which she started and pitched three innings then returned to the circle in the seventh to close out the final two outs. She allowed six hits and two runs with two strikeouts to earn her second-straight SEC series opener win.
Prebble shined at the plate, producing a 2-for-3 performance with a run and RBI. Kenzi Maguire was outstanding, as well, as she went 3-for-4 with a run and RBI. Mackenzie Boesel and Kassidy Krupit posted multi-hit games, too. Zoe Laneaux notably blasted a key two-run home run in a pinch-hit situation.
South Carolina jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to Cayla Drotar and Jordan Fabian RBI in the bottom of the first. Mississippi State tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the second with a two-run home run.
Carolina continued the scoring in a big way with four more runs in the bottom of the third to take a 6-2 advantage. The Bulldogs scored a run in the fourth while the Gamecocks added one of their own in the sixth to make it 7-3 in favor of the Garnet and Black heading to the seventh inning.
Mississippi State (25-22, 1-15) scored four runs to tie the game at 7-7 in the top of the seventh before Prebble’s walk-off hit.
Coupled with Auburn’s loss tonight, South Carolina (25-20, 4-15 SEC) is now just two games out of moving up to a tie for 11th place in the conference standings alongside the Tigers. Finishing 11th would allow Carolina to avoid the Tuesday game of the SEC Tournament between the 12th and 13th place teams.
Carolina will honor three seniors each of the final two days of the weekend. 2021 seniors Alex Fulmer, Alyssa Kumiyama and Anna Vest will be recognized prior to Saturday’s game while 2021 graduate seniors Kenzi Maguire, Mackenzie Boesel and Cayla Drotar will be honored Sunday.
NOTABLE
- South Carolina has now won three-straight series openers. It’s the longest streak since 2013 (Georgia, Auburn and Mississippi State) when Carolina took the final three SEC openers.
- Mackenzie Boesel produced her 21st multi-hit game of the season while Kenzi Maguire had her 15th, Kassidy Krupit finished with her 11th while Katie Prebble had her sixth.
- For Boesel, it was her seventh of the year in SEC play. Her career best for SEC multi-hit games is nine (2018) while her career best in multi-hit contests for an entire season is 21 (2018).
- Over her past 10 games, Maguire is hitting a team-best .387 on 12 hits with eight runs.
- In those 10 games, Leah Powell has posted a 4-1 record with seven appearances in 23.2 innings of work.
