Softball

STRONG RESPONSE

After a strenuous offseason, Katie Prebble returned as a big contributor for Gamecocks

The softball-related portion of Katie Prebble’s exit meeting with Beverly Smith after last season was relatively short and simple.

“Katie, what do you want?” asked Smith, the South Carolina head coach. “What do you want for yourself for next year? What do you see for yourself?”

“I want to be a starter,” Prebble, who hit .156 with 13 starts in 57 games, responded.

“I remember, at the end of the season, it really hitting me that I wanted to do so much more for the team and for myself,” Prebble told Spurs & Feathers before the Gamecocks entered SEC play in March.

At the time, the team’s designated player had started all 17 games and had a .289 batting average. Among regular contributors, she was first on the team in home runs (six), RBI (23) and slugging (.711) and third in OPS (1.076).

“Katie Prebble is playing fantastic right now,” Smith said at the time. “You can see her, in-game, making adjustments from at-bat to at-bat. She’s smart, she’s strong and she’s having a lot of fun right now.

“You can just see that every time she steps in the box she’s a threat.”

When Prebble told Smith this past May that she wanted to start, the coach simply said, “OK.” There was no holding her back.

So Prebble went to work.

She interned this past summer at a 301 Strong, a high-end gym near her home in Pomfret, Md.

“I was the young intern they made do all the awful workouts,” she said. “Insane workouts. A lot of crazy stuff.”

Like pushing sleds on concrete. “Don’t ever do that,” she advises.

Prebble went from taking classes to teaching them. “We also had Strong Man, which is another branch of heavy lifting,” she said. “And yeah, they had me doing all their little competitions.”

She returned to South Carolina and aced the team’s preseason fitness tests.

“I think I ran everything in the shortest amount of time that we had groups for,” she said. “I think I was in the ‘fast’ group immediately. That’s when I realized the change, because I could not do that last year.”

On the field, hitting and fielding have become “a lot easier” because she rarely has soreness, aches and pains.

She crushed a home run on opening day and five days later had a five-RBI game that included another home run. Five days later she had another home run in a four-RBI game.

“Katie has been so clutch for us. She has hit balls farther than I have ever seen hit,” Gamecock senior shortstop Kenzi Maguire said. “She always goes up with the intent to do damage. She brings this calm confidence

to our lineup and I can’t wait to see how she continues to help us win more games this year.”

On Feb. 21 at Beckham Field Prebble crushed a home run to left field that landed in the middle of the track at Athletic Village. “It’s the longest home run I’ve ever seen live,” Gamecock sports information director Patrick Osborne said.

Though she struggled last season, Prebble’s skill has always been apparent. She joined the team last season as a transfer from Gardner-Webb, where she was named a third-team All-American by the NFCA.

But she knew she could do more.

“I didn’t want to settle for what I had,” Prebble said.

“I could have sat there for four years and done perfectly fine and settled for that. But I didn’t want to. I knew I could do more and accomplish more. Why not go out and try to play at the best level?”

She told her dad in June of 2019 that she wanted to transfer.

His response: “Why not South Carolina?”

So Prebble researched the program, emailed Smith and got a response within 24 hours.

“I was on a plane [for a visit] a couple of days later,” Prebble said.

Though she was overwhelmed at first, she began to fit in with the team’s family-oriented mindset.

“Our program wants so much more than my program freshman year wanted,” Prebble said. “It’s a lot more competition in-house too, which I think is really great, because I think we all grow from it so much.”

But on the field, despite some bright spots — like a pinch-hit home run against Auburn — she struggled.

After her recruiting visit, Prebble had a meniscus “redone” and had a longer recovery than expected. It was also her first major injury. She got down on herself.

“I definitely think that I let that affect me mentally and I also didn’t trust that I had pre

pared the way I needed to to come back from that as quick as I wanted to,” she said.

“I definitely learned the most in those two months than I’ve learned in my entire life.”

But then came 301 Strong and the resurgence. Then came Smith mentioning Prebble in her preseason news conference as the team’s player to watch.

Now it’s about striving in each area of the team’s four pillars: accountability, grit, intention and perseverance.

She keeps her All-American trophy in a box in her closet at home in Maryland. She’s thankful for that season and had fun during it, but she doesn’t “give life” to it or think about it much.

“I did that and I accomplished that, but it’s not the end road for me,” Prebble said. “There’s a lot more for me to accomplish.”

She’s glad that will happen at South Carolina.

“I’m still just enjoying the ride and enjoying things as they come,” she said. “And we’re having a lot of fun. It’s hard not to have fun in our dugout. We always have more energy than the other team.

“I’m riding the wave and seeing how things turn out, but I’m having fun.”