Spartans To Play Washington, Georgia As Part Of 2011 Softball Schedule
7/26/2010 12:00:00 AM | Softball
2011 Upstate Softball Schedule
Spartanburg, S.C. – Coming off of the 2010 season when the Spartans won a Division I era-best 41 games and advanced to the championship game of the A-Sun Tournament, the USC Upstate softball team will play two teams that advanced to the College World Series and a total of 53 games in 2011 as head coach Chris Hawkins announced the schedule for next season.
Upstate will play in the Husky Softball Classic at the University of Washington on March 11-13 and will travel to Athens, Ga., to face Georgia in a single game on March 23 to pit Upstate against two teams that advanced to the College World Series last June. Washington finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in the nation and finished with a 50-9 record. Georgia finished the regular season ranked in the top 10 and finished with a 50-13 record. In addition to Washington and Georgia, the Spartans will face A-Sun foe Lipscomb as the third NCAA Tournament team on the 2011 schedule.
Upstate, which was the top-rated team in the state of South Carolina in the NCAA's final RPI rating with a No. 63 ranking, will play six teams ranked in the top 100 in the final NCAA RPI from 2010 and another four in the top 150. The Spartans finished 46 spots higher than South Carolina, which was the second-highest rated team in the state in the RPI at No. 109.
"With the addition of Washington and Georgia to our schedule, we have certainly upgraded our non-conference schedule," said Hawkins, entering his 17th season at the helm of the program and the athletic department's all-time leader with 558 wins. "We are also playing five tournaments which will pit us against a variety of teams from different regions in the country. I certainly expect every game to be a challenge."
Upstate will play in five tournaments during the regular season while playing host to the A-Sun Tournament in May. The Spartans will open the season on Feb. 11-13 when they travel to Columbia to play in the Palmetto State Showdown in a tournament hosted by South Carolina and which features most of the Division I programs in the state. Upstate will host a pair of tournaments at Cyrill Stadium, the Upstate Classic on Feb. 18-20 and the Campus Suites Spartan Classic on Feb. 25-27. The Spartans will also play in the CSU Invitational at Charleston Southern on March 4-5 prior to playing in the Husky Softball Tournament.
Upstate will play 29 homes games at Cyrill Stadium, while hitting the road to play 24 contests away from Spartanburg. The Spartans will resume its rivalry with South Carolina with another home-and-home single-game series in 2011. Upstate will travel to Columbia on March 30, while the Gamecocks will come to Spartanburg on April 13. The Spartans swept the series last season behind the stellar pitching of returning senior Morgan Childers.
Upstate will play home A-Sun doubleheaders against Belmont, Campbell, Jacksonville, Lipscomb and North Florida, while hitting the road in conference play at East Tennessee State, Florida Gulf Coast, Kennesaw State, Mercer and Stetson. The Spartans will host non-conference doubleheaders against Gardner-Webb, Furman, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central and Rhode Island. With five tournaments on the schedule, Upstate will not play any non-conference road doubleheaders.
"I felt like we had a pretty good team last year and we fought to be able to win 11 games in the A-Sun," said Hawkins. "Our conference is very good from top to bottom. Anyone can win on any given day. There simply aren't any easy games in the conference. Obviously, we want to play our best and battle for a regular season championship, but even more important is to put ourselves in position to earn one of the six spots in the A-Sun Tournament, which we are hosting. I look forward to the season and can't wait for the players to return in August and begin fall workouts in September."
Upstate finished the 2010 season with a 41-15 overall record and an 11-9 mark in the A-Sun. The Spartans qualified for the six-team A-Sun Tournament in their first year of eligibility in the event and staved off elimination three times to advance to the championship game. Hawkins will rely on a strong nucleus of returning players as Upstate battles to be one of the six teams in the A-Sun Tournament which will be played at Cyrill Stadium on May 12-14. Childers, from Kings Mountain, N.C., owns nearly every career, single-season and single-game school record at Upstate and ranks second all-time in the A-Sun in strikeouts. She returns with 84 career wins, 963 career strikeouts, 32 shutouts and a .162 opponent batting average. She is a three-time all-conference selection and earned three A-Sun Pitcher of the Week honors last season.
In addition to Childers, second team all-conference outfielder Katie Zauner (Canby, Ore.), all-freshman selection Ericka Harris (Piedmont, S.C.) and all-tournament picks Kim Brasil (Mississauga, Ontario) and Lauren Quevedo (Wellington, Fla.) return to lead the Spartans. Zauner led the league in hitting for the first part of the season and finished third on the team with a .307 batting average. Harris hit .261 and took over the reigns as the everyday starter at catcher as a freshman in 2010. She collected five game-winning hits on the year. Brasil finished the year tied for the nation lead with 21 doubles and third in the country with 0.38 doubles per game. She led the Spartans and ranked second in the A-Sun with 48 runs and topped the club with 19 stolen bases. She finished second on the Spartans with a .323 batting average. Quevedo regained her power stroke and topped the Spartans with 10 home runs while hitting .275 for the year. She drove in 24 runs and topped Upstate with a .567 slugging percentage.
Upstate returns seven starters from a year ago. Cheyanna Ohlrich (North Bend, Ore.) and Janna Lewis (Huntersville, N.C.) join Brasil, Childers, Harris, Quevedo and Zauner as returning starters. They formed a strong middle infield with Ohlrich starting at shortstop and Lewis at second base. Upstate finished second in the nation with a .980 fielding percentage, a mere .0002 points away from the top spot in the country last season.
