The South Carolina Gamecocks enjoyed a Cinderella season in 2018, earning a regional hosting berth and advancing to the Super Regional round of the NCAA tournament. The Gamecocks’ pitching staff gained much praise during the postseason run, a staff that included junior transfer Dixie Raley.
Raley finished the year with a 14-5 record for the Gamecocks, as well as a 2.09 ERA and 106 strikeouts. She earned the victory in the first game of the Columbia regional final, throwing seven innings of shutout ball with eight strikeouts to force a winner-take-all final game from which her team would ultimately emerge victorious.
Previously a Georgia Southern Eagle, Raley was an all-Sun Belt Conference selection in 2017 and was the league’s Freshman of the Year in 2016. Ironically, Raley stands in the Georgia Southern record books as the only Eagle pitcher to earn a win over South Carolina.
As the season got underway, we recently sat down with the Gamecocks righty to talk about how she got her start in softball; transferring from Georgia Southern to South Carolina; and her thoughts coming off her team’s impressive 2018 campaign.
Justin’s World of Softball: Tell me about how and when you got started playing softball. Did you play any other sports besides softball?
Dixie Raley: My daddy signed my up for Wee-ball when I was three and coached me ’til I graduated high school. I think it was more of my daddy’s dream for me to play and he pushed me. I just happened to fall in love with the game, too. I played basketball and ran track until my freshman year of high school. Playing multiple sports kept me in shape and also allowed me to enjoy softball more because it gave me some time away from it.
JWOS: What led to your decision to leave your previous school, and what made you decide on South Carolina as your new “home”?
Raley: I decided to leave Georgia Southern because I wanted to compete at the highest level possible (a power-5 conference) and reach my full potential as an athlete. I am forever grateful for my time there – I have amazing memories and was introduced to people that I am so lucky to have in my life now. I also would not be here at USC today, which has become my forever home. There has not been one day, even on my worst ones, that I have regretted choosing USC. First, I fell in love with the campus and the school and then softball. My first time walking through the campus and through the Horseshoe, it felt like home. The university has an excellent program for what I am studying, I love the city of Columbia, and I am only three hours from home. When talking with the coaching staff on my visit, I loved their vision for this program and I connected with them really well. Coach [Beverly Smith] talked to me about how she could develop me as a player and help me reach my full potential.
JWOS: Tell me about your game-day preparation process. Do you have any superstitions or other routines that you do before a game?
Raley: I don’t have any superstitions now, but in high school, I had to grab two napkins at lunch on game day and always ate a pack of M&M’s before a game. I take a few moments somewhere by myself before every game to pray. I also have to wear a visor when I pitch, but it’s not a superstition; it’s a safety thing (it saved my life in Oklahoma). I never wore a visor before playing at USC, and didn’t wear one every game I pitched last year until I got hit.
JWOS: What was it like to be part of the Gamecocks during that magical 2018 season, defying so many expectations and surprising a lot of people?
Raley: I feel so fortunate to be able to be apart of last year’s team, especially as a transfer. To come in and do what we did, it’s like someone wrote it up. Looking back on last season, it feels like a dream, but as we were in the middle of and going through it, I didn’t really get caught up in what we were accomplishing. When we started winning so many games, that became the expectation that we expected of ourselves, so no matter who we were playing, we expected to win and compete. We were just playing, competing, and having fun.
JWOS: How, as a Division I athlete, do you balance your academics with all that goes into your athletic pursuits.
Raley: Balancing academics with athletics really isn’t that difficult; it’s just prioritizing and discipline. Here at USC, we have a lot of resources to help keep us on track and our athletic advisors help a lot, but it really comes down to time management.
JWOS: What is your favorite memory from your career to this point?
Raley: My favorite memory from my career so far would be my freshman year at Georgia Southern against University of Louisiana-Lafayette. They had been ranked 3rd in the country the weekend before and I pitched a complete-game shutout to beat them at home on senior day. It was a really special way to send out our lone senior, and to beat such a high-ranked team as a freshman was a great feeling and a highlight accomplishment.
JWOS: If you could face off against any hitter, active or historic, who would you want to step in against you?
Raley: If I could pitch against anyone in a game, it would be my best friend, Morgan Robinson. She was my teammate at Georgia Southern and a great power hitter. I loved throwing to her at practice and it would be really cool to throw against her in a game as a Gamecock.
