SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The USC Upstate softball team is hitting the road once again as they travel to Western Carolina on Wednesday afternoon for a double-header with the Catamounts.
 
This will be the 24^th meeting between USC Upstate (16-6, 6-0 Big South) and Western Carolina since the 2009 softball season. The Spartans are 22-1 against the Catamounts over that span and have outscored Western Carolina (6-16, 1-1 SoCon) 146-44. USC Upstate has shutout the Catamounts on nine different occasions, including three consecutive shutouts at Cyrill Stadium.
 
The Spartans are 9-1 in games played at Western Carolina. The lone blemish on the Spartans record came during the 2016 season when the Catamounts won a 12-11 shootout. It's been four years since the Spartans last made the trek up to Cullowhee, N.C., and the Spartans came away with a pair of wins against Western Carolina.
 
USC Upstate is coming off a pair of losses to East Tennessee State last Wednesday afternoon. The Spartans were unable to travel to Campbell this past weekend due to COVID concerns within the Campbell softball program.
 
A pair of wins against Western Carolina would give the Spartans an even 5-5 road record this season. This will be just the third midweek series of the season for USC Upstate. The Spartans are 2-2 in games played on Wednesday afternoon, with a pair of wins coming against South Carolina State.
 
For the third time this season, the Big South Conference named USC Upstate freshman outfielder Bre Cooper (Massillon, Ohio) Freshman of the Week. Last week, Cooper batted .571 in a pair of starts against East Tennessee State University. The freshman led the team with four hits, three runs, one homerun, seven total bases, a 1.000 slugging percentage and a .625 on-base percentage. Cooper finished second on the team with two RBI's.
 
Cooper also leads the Spartan offense overall this season with a .391 batting average and leads the team with 25 hits on the season. Peyton Darnell (Fort Mill, S.C.) leads the team with six homeruns and 23 RBI's on the year. Darnell currently has reached base in 11 consecutive games a new team high for the season. Freshman infielder Tiffany Domingue (York, S.C.) had a three-RBI outing against the Buccaneers last week and is currently in the middle of a 10-game hitting streak.
 
In the circle, Mallie Brown (Stockbridge, Ga.) leads the Spartans pitching staff with a 2.57 earned run average and 76 strikeouts on the year. As a staff, the Spartans are second in the Big South in ERA (3.09) and lead the conference shutouts (5) and strikeouts-to-walk ratio (2.90).
 
Western Carolina is 8-16 overall and 1-1 in Southern Conference play this season. The Catamounts are currently on three game winning streak and they are 5-2 against Big South opponents this season. Western Carolina is coming off back-to-back wins over Radford this past week and they are 2-2 inside the friendly confines of Catamount Softball Complex.    
 
Bailey Huneycutt and Myra Twitty lead the Catamounts offense this season in numerous categories. Huneycutt leads the team with a .359 batting average, runs scored (16), total hits (23), homeruns (5), total bases (40), slugging percentage (.625) and on-base percentage (.488). Twitty is second on the team with a .304 batting average and she leads the team with 16-RBI's. The Spartans will face Jayme Eilers and Savannah Rice in the circle for the Catamounts. Eilers leads the pitching staff with 10 complete games, two shutouts, 78.0 innings pitched and 65 strikeouts.
 
The games can be seen on ESPN+, live stats links and a recap following the games can be found on upstatespartans.com. 
 
Attendance Policies
Western Carolina is not allowing visiting fans this season.  
 
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