SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The USC Upstate softball team is back at home tomorrow afternoon at Cyrill Softball Stadium to battle Western Carolina in a double header starting at 4:00 p.m.
 
USC Upstate (20-13, 9-3 Big South) is coming off a difficult road trip with losses to No. 20 Georgia and Winthrop this past week. This past Friday night the Spartans lost a 12-inning game 2-1 to Winthrop to open up the weekend series. Starting pitcher Savannah Brown (Mint Hill, N.C.) pitched a career high 11.2 innings in the loss to the Eagles.
 
In the second game of the series the Spartans offense awoke in the fifth inning, as Savannah Grigsby (Elgin, S.C.) hit a three-run homerun and Peyton Darnell (Fort Mill, S.C.) hit a two-run bomb to power the Spartans to a victory. In the rubber match, the Spartans fell down early, but a Bella Bertot (Coral Springs, Fla.) gave the Spartans hop late. The deficit was to much to overcome as the Spartans lost their third game of the week.  
 
On a more positive note, freshman pitcher Adison Yoder (Newton, N.C.) earned Freshman of the Week honors from the Big South Conference for her performance on the field. Yoder made a trio of appearances in relief and allowed just one earned run against Georgia and Winthrop. The freshman pitcher posted a 0.88 ERA and picked up her second save of the season in 8.0 innings of work. Yoder finished second on the team with five strikeouts and allowed just on extra base hit the whole week. Opponents hit just .172 against her.
 
Offensively the Spartans will be looking for Sarah Price (Landrum, S.C.), Bre Cooper (Massillon, Ohio), Tiffany Domingue (York, S.C.), Darnell and Grigsby to light a spark tomorrow afternoon against the Catamounts. Earlier this season the Spartans lost a pair of games to Western Carolina (18-19, 9-2 SOCON) on walk-off hits. USC Upstate has never lost to Western Carolina at home and is a perfect 13-0 since the 2009 softball season.
 
The Catamounts are a different team this season then that of years past. This year, Western Carolina is in first place in the Southern Conference after being voted last in the preseason coaches poll. Western Carolina won their weekend series against Mercer and improved to 9-2 in the Southern Conference.
 
The Spartans will be looking to quite the bats of Bailey Huneycutt, Kailey McNeil and Myra Twitty. All three batters are currently hitting over .300, with Huneycutt approaching a .400 average. Huneycutt leads the team in runs scored (27), total hits (38), homeruns (10) and total bases (73). In the circle the Spartans will be facing either Savannah Rice or Jayme Eilers, both have started 18 games for the Catamounts this season.
 
If the Spartans are able to defeat Western Carolina tomorrow afternoon, it will be the Spartans 400^th win at Cyrill Softball Stadium. Since the stadium opened in 2002, the Spartans have dominated opponents at home with an all-time record of 399-83 (.827 winning percentage).  
 
Both games can be seen on ESPN+ with Livestats and a postgame recap following the days action on upstatespartans.com.
 
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