USC softball coach Ashley Chastain Woodard sets program record in Alabama series win
South Carolina softball clinched a crucial SEC series victory with a doubleheader sweep over No. 18 Alabama on Saturday afternoon.
The No. 14 Gamecocks (39-14) used strong pitching in the first game of the day (a 3-1 win) and strong offense in game two (a 7-2 win) at Carolina Softball Stadium.
South Carolina hit two program milestones with the two victories Saturday.
Chastain Woodard sets program record
Ashley Chastain Woodard broke the South Carolina softball program record for wins as a first-year coach. The Gamecocks’ 39 wins broke Judy Martino’s record of 38 set in 1979.
“It’s been a dream to be here and just to have a successful first season is something I’m really grateful for,” Chastain Woodard said Tuesday. “It definitely is an accumulation of everyone that’s been involved, not just me. Everyone that took a chance on us last summer, all the players that came in, the staff that believed in me and just the vision of where we wanted to take the program and the brand.”
Important SEC milestone
The win in game three of the series Saturday afternoon gave South Carolina a 13-11 conference record to finish the season.
That marks the first time since 2018 the Gamecocks have finished with a winning record in SEC play. It’s just the second time in the last 22 years USC has finished above .500 in conference play.
South Carolina will begin SEC Tournament play this coming week in Athens, Georgia. The Gamecocks will have to wait until Saturday night for the official bracket to be released before they know their seeding in the tournament.
“The league was so good this year,” Chastain Woodard said. “It was so tight, it was coming down to this last weekend for so many of us that were tied kind of in the middle for the last couple weeks. So I believe we’ll be seven, eight or nine (seed) and that would put us playing on Wednesday.”
Double header game one: delayed but not denied
Game two of the series was halted by weather on Friday night. While South Carolina baseball opted to wait out the weather, the softball team waited for a sunny day to resume play.
South Carolina and Alabama got through two innings of play before the rain hit on Friday, and that game continued at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The Gamecocks’ only runs in the game came via a three-run homer from Lexi Winters in the first inning of the game (on Friday). That’s all the runs South Carolina needed to clinch the 3-1 win Saturday morning.
USC pitcher Sam Gress pitched the first two innings of the game Friday and then came back Saturday and continued to pitch lights-out. She finished the game with five strikeouts and one earned run in seven innings pitched. Gress also pitched the first 1.1 innings of the second double header game.
“I was just asked to get a pretty good start for us and that was just my whole goal,” Gress said. “Just going out there and competing and giving everything I had left in the tank to just get some quick outs there.”
Double header game two: the bats wake up
South Carolina recorded just one hit in the second game of the series — Winters’ go-ahead home run in the first inning — but was finally able to find more offense in game three.
After going down 1-0 in the second inning of the finale, the Gamecocks exploded for five runs in the bottom of the second.
USC drew three straight walks with two outs before senior Emily Vinson sent a two-RBI single up the middle to make the score 2-1 in favor of the Gamecocks.
“I was really excited coming up big for the team there, especially since when we ended the first game today, there wasn’t a lot of hits on the board for the first game,” Vinson said. “So being able to come up big there pretty early was cool.”
Quincee Lilio followed that up with a two-RBI double to make the score 4-1. Karley Shelton delivered an RBI single shortly after to extend South Carolina’s lead to 5-1.
Alabama responded in the next inning with a run, making it 5-2, but Gamecocks added two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Lexi Winters and Ella Chancey hit back-to-back RBI singles to give South Carolina a 7-2 lead.
Weather rolled in during the bottom of the fifth inning, causing a nearly two-and-a-half-hour delay. The game was eventually called due to more inclement weather, giving South Carolina the win.
This story was originally published May 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM.
