CONWAY, S.C. - The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers softball team looks to rebound this weekend from a 1-3 start during the Residence Inn Kickin' Chicken Classic, with a slate of four games as part of the Residence Inn Battle at the Beach.
CCU will host four teams, three in which the Chanticleers have no prior history. This year's field includes Delaware State, Jacksonville State, Northern Illinois, and the College of Charleston.
Coastal Carolina
Offensively, Coastal has gotten good production in particular from freshman Peyton Rivas and junior Stavi Augur. In her first four games of her career, Peyton Rivas has hit safely in each game as she has gone 7-for-15 (.467) to along with two stolen bases and two runs. Stavi Augur has also hit safely in each of the four games going 6-for-14 (.429) with a home run and six RBI.
Except for the opening game versus Virginia Tech and two innings versus Campbell, the Chant pitching staff has been strong the other two-plus games as they held the opposition to a 2.90 earned run average.
Freshman Raelee Brabham leads the Coastal starters with a 1.45 ERA, 9.2 innings of work, and has one of the two CCU complete games of this season. Junior Kaitlin Beasley-Polko has worked the most innings on the staff with 18.1 innings, picked up a complete game, and has collected 13 strikeouts. In the game versus Iowa on Feb. 8, Beasley-Polko took the loss but pitched strong in her efforts. Last year's second-team all-conference pitched eight innings but gave up an unearned run in the top of the eighth inning to the Hawkeyes that sealed a 2-1 win for the opposition.
All-time versus Kickin' Chicken Classic Opponents
CCU v. College of Charleston, 43-22
CCU v. Jacksonville State, 0-0
CCU v. Northern Illinois, 0-0
CCU v. Delaware State, 0-0
College of Charleston
The Cougars are coming off four straight losses to open the season at the Troy Trojan Classic. Charleston suffered losses to Troy, Western Kentucky, North Florida, and Lipscomb. Jenna Helberg led all Cougars batters last weekend with a .333 batting average (4-for-12) with a double and four RBI.
The Cougars used five pitchers in the four games, led by Chandler Sparkman, who went 0-2 in two starts and pitched the Cougars only complete game, ending the weekend with a 3.28 earned run average.
Jacksonville State
The Gamecocks picked up a 1-2 record in their opening weekend at the Kennesaw State Phyllis Rafter Memorial Classic. Their only win came on Friday versus IPFW as Gamecock starter Hannah Brown pitched her team to a victory as she worked 5.0 innings, allowed five hits, three runs, but no earned runs.
Both losses came to the host, Kennesaw State, allowing 21 runs in 10 innings of play.
Offensively, Keeli Bobbit led all JSU players with three hits in six at-bats, including a sixth-inning double on Friday to start the game-winning rally that saw the Gamecocks pull out a 6-4 victory.
Northern Illinois
NIU opened the weekend with a 1-0 win over Bethune-Cookman at the Florida Atlantic Tournament. The Huskies followed up the win with four straight losses to a pair of Big Ten schools, Purdue and Wisconsin, along with the host FAU and Indiana State.
Northern Illinois has five players over a .300 batting average led by Kayla Scaperotta, who comes into the weekend with a .600 batting average (3-for-5) followed by Kara Apato at .500 (6-for-12).
Amber Bumbalough led the Huskie pitching staff at FAU with three appearances with a 2.05 ERA in 13.2 innings work.
Delaware State
The Hornets have yet to play a game in 2020 but were picked eighth out of 11 teams in the MEAC Preseason Coaches' Poll. DSU had three players voted to the MEAC's preseason all-conference list, led by Jasmine Melgoza.
Melgoza is a two-time First Team All-MEAC Selection and was fourth in the conference in 2019 when she had an overall batting average of .391 and .412 average within conference play.
The league's coaches also nominated Jordan Casey and Jade King part the all-conference second team for the Hornets.
The softball action kicks off on Friday with four games starting at 10:30 a.m. with Northern Illinois taking on Delaware State. Coastal Carolina will kick off their season at 3:00 p.m. as they host on the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
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.
