All season, South Carolina softball has made a habit of responding to game one series losses.
The Gamecocks dropped game one of the series to Georgia and won the next two, and did the same at LSU. Even in series losses, they usually followed losses with wins, as happened in game two at Arkansas and game three at Auburn.
In the final series of the regular season with conference and NCAA Tournament seeding implications abound, the Gamecocks rose to the occasion one more time.
South Carolina swept a doubleheader from Alabama, winning the remainder of a 3-1 game that started last night and winning a 7-2 rain-shortened decision in game two.
“It’s the tale of our tale this season,” head coach Ashley Chastain Woodard said. “If you look back on our series there’s a lot of series where we did not play well the first game, and then we end up winning the series in games two and three with our backs against the wall. It’s just something about this team; I don’t really have an answer for it.”
Those two wins secured just South Carolina’s second winning season in SEC play out of the last 22 campaigns, and all but guaranteed postseason softball will return to Columbia for the first time since 2018 with a 13-11 conference record anda top-10 RPI.
“I’m just proud of the program,” Chastain Woodard said. “Proud of the staff, the players, everyone that supports the program day in and day out. It’s a tough league, and to come out with 13 wins in year one is special. It’s something that I will remember a lot.”
South Carolina (39-14, 13-11 SEC) started Saturday with a 3-0 lead thanks to a Lexi Winters home run on Friday night before the lightning delay halted play.
The Gamecocks did not get a hit for the remainder of the game, but pitcher Sam Gress made sure the one big swing was enough.
Gress fired a complete game on 109 pitches, scattering five singles and allowing just one run before ending the game in style. Alabama (36-20, 12-12 SEC) pushed the tying run to the plate with a one-out single, but Gress snared a line drive back at her and fired to first to double off the runner, clinching the game and tying the series.
Just under an hour later, Gress was back on the mound to start game two. She recorded four big outs, enough to turn it over to Nealy Lamb for the remainder of the abbreviated game. Gress and Lamb combined to allow two runs on five hits with only one walk in five frames, picking up right where the pitching left off earlier.
“I’m feeling really good," Gress said. "I was just asked to get a pretty good start for us, and that was just my whole goal. Just going out there and competing and giving everything I had left in the tank to just get some quick outs there. Then Nealy came in and just absolutely shoved and closed the door.”
Offensively, an unlikely hero broke the game open. South Carolina’s nine-hole hitter Emily Vinson has hit better over the last couple weeks, but still bats at the bottom of the order with a .189 average.
But when she came up with the bases loaded after three straight walks in the second inning, she waited on her pitch. She fell behind 0-2 in the count and battled.
She eventually delivered a two-run single back up the middle, opening the floodgates on a five-run inning which also included a Quincee Lilio two-run double and a Karley Shelton RBI single.
“I feel like I’ve been seeing the ball really well lately,” Vinson said. “Obviously there were three walks before me, so I wasn’t necessarily eager to hunt the first pitch or even the second one. Just really waiting for something I could hit on the ground because with two outs, a flyball doesn’t really do much there.”
Winters and Ella Chancey tacked on RBIs, the Gamecocks muscled the game through five defensive innings to make it official in case of bad weather, and at 1:52 p.m. a lightning strike within eight miles of Beckham Field halted play. The rain followed shortly after, and the teams agreed to call the game there with the quick turnaround heading to the SEC Tournament.
South Carolina, however, will not have quite as fast of a turnaround as it sealed a bye with the doubleheader sweep. The Gamecocks will play next on Wednesday in Athens, Ga., with the opponent and start time to be determined.
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