South Carolina softball struggles to plate runs in first game of Regional play
Beverly Smith made her way to the circle. Her best pitcher, Donnie Gobourne was in a jam sitting at 143 pitches. She was in looming danger with two runners aboard and one out in the sixth inning.
Trailing by two, Smith seemed ready to take the ball out of her hands. But this was Gobourne’s fight to finish. So she stuck with her ace but it didn’t pay off as she had hoped.
In the next at-bat, Chloe Evans lined a two-run triple into the gap. Smith came back out to the circle, this time to take out Gobourne and end what was a tough night for her.
It was the hit that put the game out of reach for South Carolina. After coming up one win short of completing a four-day run at an SEC title last week, the Gamecocks dropped their regional opener to UCF in Tallahassee, losing 6-1 Friday night.
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“Not the way we wanted the game to go, but as I told the team, champions adjust. This is a double elimination tournament, and you’ve got to be playing your best ball at this time of year,” Smith said. “I just don’t think we played a clean game tonight. Certainly, Donnie threw a lot of pitches, I think walks hurt us. … But to me, UCF is too good of a team to give them that many opportunities at the plate tonight.”
Gobourne, who carried the team on her back last week, didn’t have her best stuff in her postseason debut.
She had to work hard for every out. UCF kept getting ahead in the count and did all the little things right. She surrendered six runs on seven hits, while striking out six and walking six on a season-high 145 pitches.
While Gobourne wasn’t as sharp as she had been, her offense didn’t provide much run support to help her out. South Carolina struggled at the dish against Sarah Willis, only plating one run against her.
The Gamecocks couldn’t take advantage of some early scoring chances. After hitting a leadoff double in the first, Jordan Fabian was caught in a pickle and thrown out retreating to second. Later in the inning, Zoe Laneaux tried taking third on a sacrifice fly but was gunned down.
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Eventually, they made Willis start to sweat a little bit. Fabian stayed hot with an RBI single in the third to tie the game at one.
That would be about as much stress as the offense put on her. Willis retired 11 of the final 16 batters she faced en route to a complete game effort. She scattered one run on six hits and struck out four.
The biggest difference between her and Gobourne was the pitch count. Willis only walked one batter, keeping her pitch count at 100 by the end of the night.
Smith isn’t all too worried about her group’s struggles. One loss doesn’t define the season. There’s still time to turn it around but they will need to do so quickly to stay alive.
“I’ve got tremendous confidence in this group. I think they feel it, the energy was there. And we just didn’t get the timely hits when we needed it. Just have a few things to clean up, but their confidence level’s good,” Smith said.
Up next: With the loss, South Carolina will move into the loser’s bracket, where it will face Marist Saturday afternoon. First pitch is at 3:30 p.m. from Tallahassee.
