Pacer Athletics – 2010 Fall in Review
Cross Country
The 2010 University of South Carolina Aiken cross country campaign truly showed that the future is bright for Pacer cross country.
The true standout of the 2010 season for USC Aiken was freshman Keely Gillespie. A product of local North Augusta High School, Gillespie broke almost every school record in the book during her freshman season.
She was also chosen as the Peach Belt Conference Freshman of the Year after earning first team all-conference accolades at the 2010 PBC Fall Festival.
Gillespie broke the school 5K record with a time of 19:34 at the Lenoir-Rhyne Invitational on Oct. 23, 2010. She missed out by one second in claiming the school 6K record with a time of 24:21 at the 2010 NCAA Division II Southeast Regional.
Gillespie was just one part of a strong effort for Pacer cross country in 2010 that saw USC Aiken finish second in two meets. Under the direction of fifth-year head coach Larry Milner, the Pacers were second in the NCAA Division II portion of the Gamecock Invitational on Sept. 3, 2010 and at the inaugural Bridgestone-Pacer Invitational on Sept. 25, 2010.
Always a strong team academically, USC Aiken had two players nab academic honors from the PBC with seniors Nicole Maitland and Mathilde Grenet picking up PBC All-Academic plaudits. Both earned the honor for the third time in their career. A former tennis standout at USC Aiken, Grenet collected her first two in women’s tennis. Maitland earned all three in cross country. The honors went along with her three all-conference honors.
Women’s Soccer
The University of South Carolina Aiken women’s soccer team closed out its 2010 season with a 5-11-2 record. The Pacers owned a 0-8-2 mark in the extremely tough Peach Belt Conference.
The Pacers began their season by narrowly losing to 25th-ranked Belmont Abbey at the “Pacer Pit.” The 2-1 loss to the Crusaders showed what the young Pacers were capable of in the coming year.
The Pacer youth movement that USC Aiken undertook in 2010 under sixth-year head coach Sue Vodicka was defined perfectly in the narrow loss as what was described as “a learning year” by Vodicka was underway.
The 2010 Pacers, who consisted of 17 underclassmen, would return from the opening game loss to claim a victory in two of their first five games. From there, the learning curve began as USC Aiken, which was playing one of the toughest schedules in all of college soccer, earned just one point in its next eight outings. The one point was impressive nevertheless with USC Aiken tying Peach Belt Conference foe Montevallo.
USC Aiken took the lessons it had learned through its first 13 games to finish the year strongly. Beginning with a 4-1 home win over Anderson, USC Aiken closed out the 2010 season having secured a positive result in four of its final five games. The Pacers earned three wins in the five contests.
Madeline Fellabom became USC Aiken’s first Peach Belt Conference Player of the Week in four years in 2010, claiming the league’s Defensive Player of the Week plaudits on Nov. 2, 2010.
USC Aiken’s Nicole Westphal and Cassey Lloyd earned All-Academic honors from the PBC.
Men’s Soccer
The University of South Carolina Aiken men’s soccer team under the direction of 15th-year head coach closed out the 2010 season with a 2-11-2 record. The Pacers were 1-6-1 in the Peach Belt Conference.
USC Aiken may have won just two games overall on the year, but the resilient Pacers battled their way into a spot in the Peach Belt Conference tournament with a 1-0 win over conference foe Georgia Southwestern on Oct. 23, 2010. The victory over the Hurricanes garnered USC Aiken its second positive result against a PBC foe in 2010 as the Pacers also tied UNC Pembroke, 1-1, on Oct. 6, 2010.
The Pacers were unable to progress past the quarterfinal round of the PBC Tournament, falling 3-0 to PBC Tournament champion and eventual NCAA Elite Eight participant Clayton State, 3-0.
USC Aiken in addition to the positive results against Georgia Southwestern and UNC Pembroke also earned a tie with regionally-ranked Coker at the “Pacer Pit” on Sept. 8, 2010. The Pacers claimed their lone home win of the year against Newberry with a 2-1-overtime victory over the Wolves on Sept. 25, 2010.
First team all-conference performer Brett Van Pelt, who was chosen to the All-PBC team as a forward, led USC Aiken in the 2010 season. Van Pelt spent most of the season at sweeper for USC Aiken, but the sophomore was honored for his prowess offensively by the league’s head coaches with a first team nod at his more natural position of forward.
Van Pelt was one of three Pacers to earn postseason recognition as Chevy Augustine was tabbed to the PBC All-Tournament team and Chijioke Agbasi garnered region academic honors by being chosen to the CoSIDA/ESPN All-Academic District III team.
Volleyball
The University of South Carolina Aiken volleyball team concluded their 2010 campaign with an overall record of 15-16, while going 6-8 in Peach Belt Conference action.
Under the guidance of third-year head coach Glenn Cox, the Pacers took on some of the toughest competition in all of NCAA Division II and NAIA volleyball over the course of the season, making the most out of many of their matches by going the maximum five sets in 13 of their matches.
USC Aiken cruised through the majority of their season in third place in the extremely tough PBC after being projected to finish in a tie for fifth place. The Pacers even made an appearance in the second region rankings of the year as the 10th-ranked team in the Southeast Region.
The Pacers picked up one of the biggest victories of the season on Saturday, Sept. 18 as they defeated former head Pacer mentor Will Condon and the Pirates of Armstrong Atlantic State for the first time in Savannah, Ga. since Condon was the head coach at USC Aiken in 2007. The Pacers continued on through their season including collecting a season-high seven-match winning streak from Oct. 15 through Oct. 27. However, they were unable to keep the pace through some extremely tough late-season conference matches.
Despite the late-season stumble, USC Aiken advanced into the 2010 PBC Volleyball Tournament as the fourth-seeded team. USC Aiken easily bested the fifth-seeded Bearcats of Lander University in the quarterfinals. The Pacers would bow out of the tournament in the semifinal round to the Saints of 2010 regular season PBC champions and eventual tournament champions Flagler College.
USC Aiken had several players earn postseason plaudits as junior Chelsey Kight and sophomores Ashley Farwell and Samantha Lukralle were all tabbed to the PBC All-Academic Team.
Sophomore outside slugger Shannon Byers was named to the PBC All-Conference First Team while Lukralle picked up her second postseason award as she was voted the PBC Libero of the Year by the league’s coaches.
Lukralle, who had one of the most prolific seasons in recent years for the volleyball program, was named to the PBC All-Tournament team as well as an All-Region selection after she set two new school records (most service aces in a single match and most digs in a single season) and ended her 2010 campaign in the top-10 in four different conference categories.
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