Jori Heard rises to challenge, guides South Carolina to regional-opening win
South Carolina head coach Ashley Chastain Woodard knows she’s going to count on Jori Heard a lot throughout the postseason. She called on her plenty during the regular season and was quick to go to her right away this weekend.
With two outs in the second inning on Friday, Chastain Woodard went to Heard after Nealy Lamb gave up two runs on five hits. She knew she was going to Heard regardless of how Lamb’s outing went. It was just a little sooner than she maybe hoped for.
“It’s a big stage, and Nealy is still really young. Jori’s got a lot of experience,” Chastain Woodard said. “… We’re asking Nealy to do something that she’s not done before. So there’s just going to be a little bit of growing pains, I think, along the way with her, but we believe in her.”
Leading by a run at that point, Heard struck out the first batter she faced to end the inning and set the tone for how the rest of the night would go. The junior pitcher allowed one hit over 5.1 innings, helping No. 8 South Carolina to a 5-2 win over Elon. The Gamecocks (41-15) will face North Florida on Saturday in the winner’s bracket round of the Columbia Regional.
Heard provided everything that South Carolina could’ve wanted and more. She struck out six without a walk and retired 16 of the 17 batters that she faced. Elon’s only hit came on a two-out single by Kaitlyn Wells in the fifth, to which Heard sat down the next seven hitters to close out the game.
“In watching film, we were kind of expecting a certain pitch, and it wasn’t necessarily what we were getting,” Wells said. “… We had a lot of loud outs. Just because we didn’t get hits, we were hitting the ball hard and putting it in play. And I think we were so close, it was just a little bit of some unlucky at-bats.”
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While Elon’s top third of the lineup recorded the only six hits of the game, the others who weren’t as lucky were still making good contact. The Phoenix had seven groundouts and three flyouts against Heard. South Carolina’s defense just happened to be in the right spots.
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“I felt really good,” Heard said after her outing. “I’m very grateful for the people I have around me, and the defense I have is so amazing. I can trust them.”
Not only did the defense pick up Heard more times than not, but the bats did enough in the early going to give her room to work with. Facing Elon’s ace McKenna McCard, the Gamecocks scored three quick runs in the first, two on a hard-hit ball by Lexi Winters that resulted in an error. Brooke Blankenship added another run with a first-pitch RBI double.
After Elon got one of those runs back in the next frame off Lamb, Arianna Rodi blasted her 17th homer of the year, a two-run shot in the third to put the Gamecocks up by three runs.
“Honestly, just try to keep it as simple as possible, just a strike over the heart of the plate,” Rodi said. “In this regional way, we haven’t seen anything that we haven’t seen all year. So, to keep it as simple as possible is the way for success.”
Up next: South Carolina will face North Florida with a chance to advance to the regional championship. First pitch is at 1 p.m. on Saturday and will be streamed on ESPN Plus.
