ATHENS, Ga. — And now they wait.

South Carolina softball is out of the SEC Tournament after a 1-1 week at Jack Turner Stadium in Athens, following a 6-2 win over Alabama with a 12-4 loss to Texas A&M on Thursday night.

An ugly night for the Gamecocks defensively saw five errors scattered across the night, and Texas A&M (44-9) scored two unearned runs off the mistakes.

“Obviously really disappointed with the result of the game,” head coach Ashley Chastain Woodard said. “Texas A&M is one of the best teams in the country. You have to play really well to beat them, and we did not. That’s one of the lesser defensive performances we’ve had all year. We’ve been really good on defense even fro the start.”

South Carolina (40-15) spent most of the game battling back from an early 4-1 hole. The Gamecocks did strike first on an Abigail Knight RBI single, but a pair of two-run homers in the second inning by Kennedy Powell and Mya Perez off South Carolina starter Sam Gress quickly erased the lead.

From there it was a story of the Gamecocks getting within arm’s length, but not being able to fully close the gap. Karley Shelton homered in the third and a run off a fielder’s choice in the fourth made it 4-3, only for a two-error bottom half of the fourth to lead to two Texas A&M runs. Quincee Lilio responded with a lead-off home run in the fifth inning off the scoreboard in right field, but it was four straight innings with a single run for the Gamecocks while the Aggies managed to put up crooked numbers.

“I think it’s just how to handle our emotions a little bit better,” Gress said on what her team learned this week. “It’s just having a next pitch mentality, especially in the circle. I thought we gave them a lot of momentum early on, and didn’t really take a punch at it.”

And finally, the hammer blow came in the fifth inning. Texas A&M ended the game early with a six-run fifth inning to clinch the contest on the run rule. KK Dement’s three-run double moved the Aggies to the brink, and then in what felt like the only way the game could have ended, the game-clinching run scored on an error after a ground ball to second base ended up in shallow right field.

Now the question is all about the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina should be more than secure as top-16 seed and a regional host. By any possible metric from RPI to strength of schedule to conference wins, the Gamecocks are comfortably one of the 16 best teams in the country and should expect to host a regional at Beckham Field next weekend.

“We have to carry ourselves liike we belong if we want to want to be at the top of this league,” Chastain Woodard said. “It’s just lessons learned that will I think serve us well as we start postseason next weekend, and then future teams as well. I think that’s a really key piece for me as we continue to build the program. These lessons will carry team to team.”

But the question of if South Carolina has done enough to get a top-eight national seed — and thus would host all of its postseason game up until the Women’s College World Series — remains in the air. The Gamecocks had the No. 7 RPI entering play Thursday, but a 13-11 conference record falls a little bit below the usual standard of a top-eight national seed.

With no more games left to play and nothing to do but cross their fingers, Chastain Woodard got her final pitch in for the selection committee.

“The facts are the facts,” she said. “We have 17 Quad I wins. That is I believe tied for second in the country. Personally I think that that’s the most important thing when you’re deciding 1-8 and who is going to be able to host a super. There is no arguing that, we earned all 17 of those. And I think we have 23 top-50 wins. No quad III losses, no quad IV losses.”

Chastain Woodard also talked about her team’s bold non-conference scheduling, lining up March series against Duke and Texas Tech with a 5-1 record across the two weekends.

“We went five for six there,” she continud.”They can’t argue that, and I think that shoudl n something when looking at our resume. Especially for a team and program which, let’s just be honest, people didn’t have much expectation for. It was something we didn’t py much attention to. They earned it. I think we have a really valid argument for a top-eight seed.”

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