South Carolina’s softball team will host Central Florida in its home opener Wednesday afternoon.
The Gamecocks opened their season strong this past weekend at the Pirate Classic, taking away four wins in five games thanks to many dominating performances.
Friday afternoon, the team opened its season against Longwood and defeated them 3-1. Saturday, the Gamecocks faced Delaware State and crushed them 17-0, then beat ECU in an impressive 11-2 win. South Carolina overpowered Longwood again Sunday morning 10-0, but fell short to ECU 1-0 later that day.
“We’re definitely ready for Wednesday,” redshirt senior pitcher Julie Sarratt said. “Coming out of ECU, we won four big games, so we’re just going to carry it through working hard in practice and getting ready for the game.”
The team was successful the first four games, scoring 41 runs total, but they were tired by the last game. They only allowed the Pirates to score once, but once was enough.
Overall, they put in a solid performance, which gave a good impression of how ready they are for the rest of their season.
“I think our goal is to be building every game,” head coach Beverly Smith said. “I think we took a lot of confidence from the things we did well this weekend and are looking to build on them.”
Coming back from the tournament, the Gamecocks fixed what they needed to be ready for their first home game. After learning what they did wrong and fixing those mistakes, they feel more than ready to be back on their home field.
With UCF coming to their home turf, South Carolina is excited to have their fans come out. They’re hoping to build more of a fan base this season to show their fellow Gamecocks what they have.
“It’s our first home game and we just had a great weekend," sophomore first baseman Kaylea Snaer said. "We love playing at home, and we’re ready to show our fans and everyone what we have.”
The main thing South Carolina has been practicing is how to work well as a team. Over the break, they tried to work on themselves and now they're working on team success.
“I think everyone just worked to improve their game individually at first,” Smith said. “Now that we’ve been back, we’ve been putting all that individual hard work together and everything we’ve been stressing now is team. I think the girls have really bought into our team atmosphere, and we’re looking to attack with that.”
Being prepared as a team is important for the Gamecocks to have a great season. Coming together, playing as one and knowing all of their roles will help the team tremendously.
“The team, we’re ready to go,” Snaer said. “We’re banding together and we’re working for each other.”
After playing five away games, the Gamecocks want to play on the field they've put so much work into.
“We’re all ready,” Sarratt said. “We’ve been working really hard since we came back in January, and we’re ready to put it all on the field and just perform.”