Upstate Ends Season Among A-Sun's Statistical Best
5/20/2008 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 20, 2008
Spartanburg, S.C. - The USC Upstate softball team and several of its players ended the 2008 season ranked among the A-Sun's best in several statistical categories, released the league in its final statistical report after Campbell was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament over the weekend.
Upstate, which won 11 of its last 12 A-Sun games, claimed a share of the regular season championship in its first year as a member of NCAA Division I and the A-Sun. The Spartans are not eligible to participate in the conference tournament during its provisional years which, for softball, ends after the 2009. However, had the Spartans been eligible for the tournament, Upstate would have entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed over Florida Gulf Coast and Lipscomb based on the conference's tiebreaker rules. With an exceptional year came exceptional results for the Spartans.
As a team, Upstate finished with a 34-15 record which was the second-best overall mark in the conference. The Spartans ranked second in the league in hitting with a .292 batting average and was fourth in pitching with a 2.29 ERA. Upstate was sixth in fielding with a .961 fielding percentage.
Individually, the Spartans also performed well. Courtney Feldon finished the season ranked fifth in the A-Sun with a .372 batting average. The freshman from Denver, N.C., also finished ninth in the conference with a .449 on base percentage. Heidi Gibbs (Florence, S.C.), a junior, ranked ninth in the league with a .357 batting average. Freshman Kim Brasil (Mississauga, Ontario) finished the year with five triples, finishing second in the league just one three-bagger shy of the top spot. Senior Shay Slater (Anderson, S.C.) stole 26 bases to finish fourth in the A-Sun.
Morgan Childers capped a tremendous season by ranking in the top 10 in all nine pitching categories in the A-Sun. The freshman from Kings Mountain, N.C., led the conference with 27 wins, a 1.37 ERA and a .171 opponents batting average. The 27 wins established a new single-season school record, while ranking as the fifth best single-season effort in A-Sun history. She ranked second with 10 shutouts, fourth with 25 complete games, sixth with 214 innings pitched and two saves, seventh with a single-season school record 39 appearances, and eighth with 27 games started. Her 258 strikeouts, which also established a new single-season school record, ranked fourth in the A-Sun, but her 8.44 strikeouts per game was the second-highest total in the conference.
Upstate finished the season with a 34-15 overall record and a 16-6 mark in the A-Sun. It marked the fifth straight season, and the ninth in the last 10 years, the Spartans won 34 or more games. The 16 conference wins also tied the school record for league wins, equaling the 16 wins by the 2007 squad in the Peach Belt Conference. Childers was named the A-Sun Pitcher of the Year and the Freshman of the Year, marking the first time in A-Sun history that a player has been named the pitcher and freshman of the year in the same season. She was an A-Sun First Team All-Conference selection and was joined on the all-conference team by second team selections Gibbs and Lauren Quevedo (Fr., Wellington, Fla.). Childers, Quevedo, Brasil and Feldon were also named to the A-Sun All-Freshman Team. Vanesa Flores earned ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District honors. Finally, Childers earned Second Team All-Region honors by the NFCA.
