Loyal USC women’s fans packing for Tampa

The road to the Final Four spans about 486 miles – 71/2 hours, or so, by car – for University of South Carolina women’s basketball fans planning to journey from Columbia to Tampa this weekend.

But even before the women’s NCAA tournament started two weeks ago, Trudy Frierson and her friends had locked in their travel plans.

The Orangeburg resident is among a Midlands contingent that will be heading to Tampa to watch USC compete for the program’s first national title.

The USC women will face Notre Dame in the NCAA semifinals Sunday. The winner will play for the national championship on April 7.

As of Monday afternoon, USC had not planned any travel and ticket packages for the Final Four as it did for the Greensboro Regional games and an away trip to Duke earlier in the season.

But Frierson said she and her friends never questioned for a moment whether they’d be heading to Florida.

“We’ve had our reservations down there in Tampa for about three weeks,” Frierson said. “So we were really, really expecting things to go our way.”

Frierson, her sister LuAnne Renwick of Lexington, Debbie Lovelace of Orangeburg and another friend from Columbia are part of a group of Gamecock faithful who regularly tailgate at football games and have attended nearly every women’s home basketball game this season.

The four made the three-hour trip to Greensboro this past weekend and watched the women’s team win the regional to earn the program’s first trip to the Final Four.

Now they’re ready for the final leg of the journey.

“We’re ready to go. Bags are packed,” Frierson said.” We did not have any doubts that we would be making this trip.”

That group is not alone in their enthusiasm.

Officials with the USC athletics ticket office said they received numerous calls on Monday from fans inquiring about tickets. But many of those callers were being referred directly to the McDonald’s Ticket Office at Amalie Arena in Tampa. Only Gamecock Club members, women’s basketball season ticket holders and university faculty/staff members are able to purchase tickets locally.

Those who do get tickets will have to fork out a little for them. Ticket booklets feature a ticket to both sessions (three games) of the Final Four. A lower level booklet is $225, and an upper level booklet is $125.

Frierson is a Gamecock Club member, but she said she and her friends may have to draw straws to see who gets to sit in the lower level of the arena, since their club membership only affords them two seats in that level.

But that, she said, is a small hurdle, given the tremendous excitement they’ve enjoyed this season. They plan to drive halfway on Saturday, catch a little of the men’s tournament on television and then make the rest of the trip Sunday.

“We plan ... to stay down through Wednesday,” Frierson said. “It has been so much fun to follow the girls and learn their personalities. They are resolved. They have done it for each other. They’ve done for the fans and they’ve done it for the coach. It’s just been so much fun to a part of.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2015 at 8:14 PM with the headline "Loyal USC women’s fans packing for Tampa."