Clear Bag Policy

Kickin' Chicken Classic Program

CONWAY – The Coastal Carolina Chanticleer softball team begins their 2019 season tomorrow as they host the first of three weekend home tournaments starting with the annual Kickin' Chicken Classic at St. John Stadium. This year's field includes three teams that made the NCAA tournament a season ago including the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers, the UIC Flames, and the Boston Terriers. Also in this year's tournament will be the Rider Broncs who made an appearance in Conway last season in the Chanticleer Showdown.

Coastal Carolina
 
Coastal comes into the season returning 12 letter winners and were picked to tie for eighth in the Sun Belt Conference.
 
Offensively, the Chanticleers are led by 2018 First Team All-Sun Belt and NFCA All-Southeast Region, sophomore Courtney Dean. Last season, Dean hit .345 and had 15 home runs which were tops in the league for all freshman.
 
Junior Kassidy Smith had a solid 2018 season as she tied her career-high of 11 home runs and was first on the team with 36 walks.
 
Pitcher Ashley Guillette led the team with 14 wins, as it was sixth best in the Sun Belt and moved to her to tenth in school history.
 
Kaitlin Beasley-Polko had 12 wins in 2018. The then freshman had 14 strikeouts versus Kent State on March 4, which was second-best in school history, behind two others.

All-time versus Kickin' Chicken Classic Opponents
CCU v. Tennessee 0-7
CCU v. Boston 0-1
CCU v. UIC 1-6
CCU v. Rider 1-0
 
Tennessee
 
Tennessee ended the 2018 season ranked in the top ten for the 15th consecutive year earning a No. 10 ranking in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches' Poll and the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Poll.
 
The Volunteers return 13 players from a season ago and were voted this season in the SEC preseason coaches poll to place third in the conference. Aubrey Leach was voted to the All-SEC team as last season she set the single-season school record with 80 runs scored and paced the SEC with a .441 batting average.
 
Along with Leach, Meghan Gregg earned All-America honors as she ranked second in the nation with 72 RBIs and led the Vols squad with 18 home runs.
 
Scarlet McSwain earned also first-team All-SEC honors, while freshman Ashley Morgan and Amanda Ayala earned Freshman All-SEC honors.
 
Boston
 
The Terriers return 11 letterwinners from last year's team and are picked by the Patriot League coaches to repeat as conference champions.
 
In 2019, Alex Heinen and Ali DuBois received accolades as preseason player and pitcher of the year respectively in the league.
 
In 2018, Heinen was named Player of the Year and Dubois named the Pitcher and Rookie of the Year along with ECAC Rookie of the Year. Another notable performer on this year's roster is Madi Killebrew who was named the 2018 Patriot League tournament MVP when she broke the league's tournament record for runs batted in with ten.
 
In 2018, Head Coach Ashley Waters named the Patriot League and ECAC Coach of the Year as she led Boston U to their first ever win against a No. 1 team in the country at the Troy Classic on February 17 against Oklahoma.
 
UIC
 
The 2019 UIC Flames return 15 letterwinners from a season ago and were voted first in the Horizon League's preseason coaches poll.
 
Like Coach Waters in 2018,  Head Coach Lynn Curylo earned the conference's best coach and as it was her second in as many seasons.
 
Curylo success as result of Lexi Watts earning the Horizon Player of the Year. Skylee James, Kayla Wedl and Taylor Cairns also earned first team honors while Marley Hanlon, Maddie Spinks, and Alyssa Griman were named to the All-Freshman Team.
 
As a team Flames a team earned Horizon League bests in batting average (.289), runs (246), hits (417), RBIs (217), walks (160), on-base percentage (.364), steals (104), and fielding percentage (.968), ERA (3.31), batting average against (.262),  batting fewest runs allowed, most strikeouts (252) and shutouts (10).
 
Rider
 
The Broncs return 12 players from a season ago that saw action. The MAAC coaches voted Rider to finish tenth in their conference, but 2018 saw Payton Romines earning a spot on the All-Rookie team, Tori Nino (1^st team) and Elyse Cuttic (2^nd team) also earning All-MAAC honors.
 
Cuttic was named to the 2019 All-MAAC preseason team as last year she saw her earned run average drop by 4.62, from 7.70 to 3.08. At the plate, Cuttic led her team with six homers, 33 runs batted in and .484 slugging percentage.
 
Action kicks off on Friday with five games starting at 9:30 a.m. with UIC taking on Tennessee. Coastal Carolina will kick off their season at 2 p.m. as they take on Volunteers, followed by CCU taking on Rider at 4:15 p.m.
 
For complete coverage of CCU softball, follow the Chanticleers on social media at @CoastalSB (twitter), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) and facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (facebook) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.