South Carolina returns to NCAA Tournament for 4th straight year, learns regional destination
South Carolina is heading back to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season. Though this time around, the road to Oklahoma City will start in a familiar spot.
The Gamecocks will be a two-seed in the Los Angeles Regional, paired with the No. 8 national seed UCLA Bruins. The other teams in the regional are Cal State Fullerton and Cal Baptist.
South Carolina’s first game of the tournament will be against Cal State Fullerton on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The winner of that game will take on the winner of UCLA vs. Cal Baptist in the winner’s bracket, while the losing teams from those games will face off in an elimination game.
It’s been an up-and-down year for the Gamecocks (30-26, 7-17 SEC) in Ashley Chastain Woodard’s second season as head coach after being a national seed in last year’s tournament. But the RPI being at No. 25 was more than good enough to help them return to the postseason.
After winning seven of nine games from April 14-28, South Carolina went into the final weekend of the regular season playing its best softball. But it will come into the postseason on a four-game losing streak after being swept by Alabama and then falling to Ole Miss in the first round of the SEC Tournament.
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There’s some familiarity and recent history there with the Gamecocks and UCLA. Back on Feb. 21, they met in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic out in California, with the Bruins scoring five runs in the bottom of the seventh to come from behind and win in walk-off fashion.
Of course, their most notable meeting came last season in Columbia, when the two teams squared off in a Super Regional with a trip to the Women’s College World Series on the line. South Carolina won the opener convincingly and carried a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh in Game 2. However, UCLA rallied for four runs, capped by a walk-off two-run home run from Jordan Woolery.
Then, in the winner-take-all Game 3, the Gamecocks’ season came to an end in a 5-0 shutout loss as the Bruins advanced to Oklahoma City for the fourth time in the last five years.