VALDOSTA, Ga.- The Valdosta State softball team heads to the 2024 Gulf South Conference Softball Championship in Oxford, Ala. at Choccolocco Park, May 1-4. The Blazers are the No. 5-seed in the tournament and will face No. 4-seed Alabama Huntsville at 4:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
 
Click Here for the GSC Championship Central webpage for links to live stats, streaming through FloSports, purchase tickets and more.  The 2024 GSC Softball Championship will be streamed exclusively on FloSports.  Fans will be required to purchase a subscription. To get preferred GSC pricing ($19.99/month) follow these three (3) easy steps.
 
Step 1: SIGNUP HERE through the football portal, then click JOIN NOW under any of the associated sports. Then click SIGN UP on the top right corner of the screen.
Step 2: Click SIGN UP and follow the subscriptions directions.
Step 3: Once registration is complete, click the go to Flosoftball.com/watch
NOTE: Signing up anywhere else will result in full cost for subscriptions ($29.99/mo). Subscriptions can be canceled at anytime. If you have technical issues, please reach out to FloSports Support.
 
Fans can also access live stats on vstateblazers.com or the GSC Championship Central page while radio broadcasts of the tournament will be broadcasted on 92.1 Talk Radio with Herb Reinhard and Kit Strief on the call.
 
The GSC online mobile ticketing for the conference championship is now active.  Click on the link to the right to purchase tickets for the championship online and redeem admission via mobile phone at the admission gate.
 
VSU (29-21, 19-11) rounded out the 2024 regular season fifth in the GSC standings, behind No. 1-seed Mississippi College, Auburn Montgomery, West Florida, and Alabama Huntsville. Conference leader MC finished its season 42-6 with a 24-6 mark in the GSC and went 3-0 in the series against VSU earlier in the year (7-5, 12-4, 7-6).
 
Auburn Montgomery is the No. 2-seed with a 23-7 record in GSC play and a 36-11 mark overall. West Florida is the No. 3-seed with a 22-8 record in league play and a 35-14 mark overall, while Alabama Huntsville is the No. 4-seed, followed by VSU, Montevallo, Union and West Florida.
 
This season, the Blazers have tallied 422 hits in 50 games including 50 doubles, eight triples and a nation-leading 114 home runs. VSU has earned 377 total runs and 353 RBI while hitting a collective .312 and slugging .614 for fourth in the nation. The Blazers also pride themselves with patience at the plate, ranking fourth in the nation in walks with 241 on the season.
 
Individually, junior Carly Bogart leads the team in batting average, batting a .380 average on 46 hits in 121 plate appearances with seven doubles and 11 home runs. Meanwhile, junior Abby Sulte leads the team in runs (67) and home runs (29) while slugging a team-high .986. She also leads the team in on-base percentage, getting on base at a .528 rate. Senior Morgan Hill leads the team in hits with 58 as well as doubles with 13 while also swiping a team-high 16 stolen bases. Senior Aniston Gano is the team-leader in RBIs with 65 on the year while ranking fourth in the nation in home runs with 21 and 10th in the nation in RBI.
 
Sulte also earned GSC Player of the Week following an excellent stretch of games against West Georgia. Sulte had a historic weekend in Carrollton, Ga. when she broke the GSC single-season home run record, passing Courtney Albritton's 27 homers in 2014 with her nation-leading 29. She also currently sits at second in Division II history in the category while being just three homers shy of tying first place. The St. Petersburg native had a near perfect weekend at the plate, tallying five hits in eight at-bats for a .625 average. She rallied for five runs and seven RBI on the weekend, cracking four home runs over the three-game stretch. She got on base at a .750 rate while slugging a team-high 2.125 percent. She also took four walks over the weekend.
 
Alabama Huntsville enters the GSC Championship for the 28th time with a 37-14 record overall and a 22-8 mark in GSC play. UAH defeated Union in its final series of the regular season, winning the first game, 8-0, before falling in the second game, 14-0. The Chargers bounced back to win the series in the third game, 6-2. VSU won the regular season series against UAH in Valdosta back on March 16. The Blazers knocked down the Chargers in the opener 20-9 before dropping the second game 8-3. VSU fought back and won the series, taking the final game, 9-3. Last Season, the Chargers claimed their ninth GSC title, defeating West Alabama in the tournament final, 1-0.
 
The Chargers are led at the plate by Alexa Douthitt with a team-high .468 average on 54 runs, 12 doubles, 14 homers and 59 RBI. Meanwhile, Jada Henderson is batting .438 with 63 hits and a team-high 16 doubles while Lawren Hayes is batting .423 with 74 hits and a team-leading seven triples. The UAH pitching staff is led by the duo of Katie Bracken and Josie Thompson. Bracken (15-4) is the workhorse of the bullpen, going 124.1 innings with a 3.27 ERA. She also leads the team in strikeouts with 155 on the year. Meanwhile, Thompson (14-6) has a team-high 2.58 ERA in 108.2 innings pitched.
 
If VSU were to defeat UAH, it would play at 7:00 p.m. ET Thursday evening.  If VSU were to lose to UAH, it would play in the 1:30 p.m. ET game Thursday.
 
VSU is 77-49 all-time in the GSC Championship marking its 34th year in the tournament.  VSU has reached the semifinals 21 times, with 13 trips to the finals and nine titles in 1993, 2002, 2009-2014 and 2018.  The 77 wins by VSU are first among current members and all-time members.  The nine titles are the most among both current institutions and all-time members of the conference.
 
The Blazers went 1-2 in the tournament last year with a 8-4 victory over West Florida and then losses to AUM (10-4) and Mississippi College (13-1). Last Season, Mississippi College knocked out Valdosta State in the second round of the tournament.