NOTES
GSC TOURNAMENT HOMEPAGE
LIVE VIDEO
 
PENSACOLA, Fla. – The postseason starts on Thursday for the University of West Florida softball team, as the Argonauts make the trip to Oxford, Alabama, for the Gulf South Conference Championship at Choccolocco Park. UWF is seeded fourth in the tournament and will face 5-seed West Georgia in the first round of the tournament, starting at 12:30 pm.
 
Each of the eight teams will play two games on Thursday, with the second games of the day determined by results in Game 1. After the six remaining teams play on Friday, a champion will be crowned on Saturday.
 
West Florida completed its regular season on Sunday with a sweep over Lee, putting the Argonauts at 30-12 overall and 22-7 in the GSC this year. Additionally, UWF will enter the tournament on a four-game winning streak.
 
All games in the tournament will be streamed live and will feature live stats, which can be found at the links above or by visiting the GSC Tournament Homepage.
 
Tickets to get into Choccolocco Park for the GSC Softball Championship are $10 per day, which will also cover admission for the GSC Baseball Championship on Friday and Saturday. Parking at the facility will be $5.
 
IN THE GSC CHAMPIONSHIP
UWF has an extensive history in the Gulf South Conference Championship, and the program will look to add to that history this week, starting with a matchup against West Georgia. The Argonauts have made 22 prior trips to the GSC Championship, good for the fourth-most in conference history, and their 48 wins in the tournament and .623 winning percentage are each the third-best in the GSC.
 
West Florida is making its 23rd appearance in the tournament, and West Georgia is making its 19th, but the teams have met twice before in the GSC Tournament -- the most recent of those was in the 2019 GSC Championship Game, which UWF won 4-1.
 
The 2019 tournament marked UWF's fourth conference championship (1998, 2004, 2005), which is also the fourth-most in GSC history. Current Argonauts Kelsey Sweatt, Teala Howard, and Jacquelynne Poling were named to the All-Tournament Team in 2019, with Sweatt earning the nod as the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The pitcher threw 14.0 innings across three games, striking out 18 batters and pitching to a 0.50 ERA.
 
A LOOK AT OUR BRACKET
West Florida is familiar with each of the other seven teams in the conference tournament, with a combined 13-7 record against the other seven teams who reached the postseason.
 
The Argonauts faced their first opponent, West Georgia, on April 23 and split a doubleheader before the series finale was cancelled due to bad weather.
 
Also in UWF's half of the bracket for the first day of competition are 1-seed Auburn Montgomery and 8-seed Montevallo. The Argonauts went 2-1 at AUM in mid-march and swept Montevallo in Pensacola on April 9-10.
 
ARGONAUTS LATELY
West Florida has a 12-2 record since the start of April, with series wins over Union, Montevallo, and Lee, and a split against West Georgia. The offense has stayed hot, hitting .309 and slugging .504 while averaging 6.2 runs per game.
 
But the biggest difference has been in the circle. The Argonaut pitching staff has thrown to a 1.97 ERA over the last month, highlighted by several strong outings from all three pitchers. Grace Gilbert leads the team with a 1.80 ERA over 35.0 innings, and opponents are hitting just .210 against her, while Sweatt has struck out 57 batters in her last 45.0 innings. She had double-digit strikeouts in three of her five starts in April.
 
WE ARE RANKED
The UWF softball team remains ranked 22nd in the country and is still under consideration for a spot in the NCAA Tournament, as announced last Wednesday.
 
UWF has been ranked in every poll since March 7. The Argonauts were joined in the poll by fellow Gulf South Conference teams Valdosta State at No. 2, Auburn Montgomery at No. 11, and Alabama Huntsville at No. 18, while South Region opponent Rollins (No. 15) is also ranked.
 
The complete list of teams under consideration includes Alabama Huntsville, Auburn Montgomery, Rollins, Saint Leo, Tampa, Valdosta State, UWF, and West Georgia. Six teams will make it to the NCAA Tournament from the South Region this year.
 
SLUGGING AWAY
Fans have witnessed one of the most powerful offenses in UWF history this season. The Argonauts have put together a .515 slugging percentage, good for the highest in program history, and have hit 46 home runs, which are the third-most in a single season in UWF history and are the 13th-most in the country.
 
UWF is also 17th in Division II and first in the GSC in doubles (72) -- Courtney McLellan ranks second in the GSC in doubles (11), and Ally Merrill is third with 10.
 
Five Argonauts are slugging .600 or better this season – Jacquelynne Poling (.718), Ally Merrill (.658), Courtney McLellan (.643), Kara Wilson (.606), and Teala Howard (.601).
 
The program record for slugging is .476, done by the historic 2005 UWF team that won 60 games and won the GSC Championship. UWF's 46 home runs are the third-most for an Argonaut squad since 1995, behind only the 2005 and 2008 teams that each hit 50.
 
EARNING #100
UWF head coach Ashliegh McLean is in her third season at the helm of the program, and earned her 100th career win on Saturday. With a career 101-32 record, she has a better winning percentage through her first three seasons (.759) than any other current Gulf South Conference coach did in their first three seasons, with the exception of Eric Newell at Auburn Montgomery (.780), who started his tenure in the NAIA.
 
McLean's first two years were noteworthy, to say the least -- she led the team to the NCAA Championship and 54 wins in 2019, before going 17-9 in the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
 
THE CLASS OF THE GSC
With a 54-16 conference record since 2019, West Florida holds the best winning percentage (.771) in league play among all Gulf South Conference teams. The team's 54 conference wins -- as well as their 101 total wins -- over the past three seasons are the most in the GSC.
 
UWF has gotten production from every part of the lineup. Teala Howard leads the team with a .450 batting average in conference play, and she, Angela Agurkis, Mika Garcia, Kayla Mayo, Courtney McLellan, Ally Merrill, Jacquelynne Poling, Kara Wilson have each hit multiple home runs against the GSC.
 
JACQUELYNNE POLING, SO CLUTCH
Catcher Jacquelynne Poling has kicked into another gear offensively in her senior season. In UWF's last 25 games since March 9, Poling has hit all 8 of her home runs and leads UWF in round-trippers, RBIs (26), slugging (.833), and walks (12).
 
Her eight home runs are a career-high and the most for a UWF catcher since Natalie Manis hit eight in 2005.
 
THE EXCITING TEALA HOWARD
Third baseman Teala Howard is fourth in the country with 66 hits this year, and she led DII in hits last season.
 
The junior is UWF's all-time batting leader (.466), ranks third in steals (98), and fifth in slugging (.592), and she tied the UWF single-season record for batting in 2019 (.464) as a freshman.
 
She's currently on an 13-game hitting streak and is hitting .521 (25-48) with 19 runs and 9 stolen bases, and she has 9 multi-hit games in that stretch.
 
POWER HITTER KARA WILSON
This season, UWF's senior leads all GSC center fielders in total bases (80), home runs (10), and RBIs (34), and ranks sixth, eighth, and ninth in those categories among all GSC hitters. Her multi-homer game in the series finale at Valdosta was the first of her career and the first for an Argonaut since 2017, and her 10 home runs this season are the most for UWF since 2010, when Shannon Miles hit 12.
 
THE RED-HOT KELSEY SWEATT
Pitcher Kelsey Sweatt has been dominant over her last nine outings, and it started with the series at Union to begin April. Sweatt was named the GSC Pitcher of the Week for the third time this season, after posting a 1.62 ERA and striking out 20 batters over 13 innings against the Lady Bulldogs on the road.
 
The Jacksonville, Florida, native has double-digit strikeouts in three games this year, all of which came in April. She struck out 12 against Union on April 2, 10 against Montevallo on April 10, and struck out 13 at Flagler, throwing a one-hit shutout.
 
The 13 strikeouts against Flagler matched a career high for Sweatt -- she also had 13 Ks against West Georgia last year, and it marked the fifth time in her UWF career that she struck out 10 or more batters in a game.
 
Sweatt's hot streak has put her second in the league in wins (14), third in strikeouts (111), and sixth in opponent batting average (.204).
 
PROFESSIONAL HITTER COURTNEY MCLELLAN
Courtney McLellan has been as consistent as anyone in the UWF lineup this year, with her batting average never dipping below .342 all season. The senior from Bradenton is second in the GSC in doubles (12) and has taken major steps forward at the plate this season.
 
Already a first team All-GSC pick in 2019, McLellan has set career highs in hits (41), batting average (.357), doubles (2), home runs (5), RBIs (34), slugging (.643), and on-base percentage (.411), with more walks than strikeouts.