May 4, 2012
UCF Athletics Social Media Directory
By Andrew Jennette
UCFAthletics.com
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (UCFAthletics.com) - Conference USA's two best pitchers will face each other in a critical softball series this weekend between UCF and Marshall.
The series in Huntington, W. Va., will wrap up the regular season for the third-place Knights (39-13, 15-6 C-USA) and the fourth-place Herd (31-20, 12-9). UCF will clinch no worse than the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament with one win and could claim a share of C-USA's regular-season title with a sweep.
The teams will play a doubleheader at 1 p.m. Saturday before concluding the series with a single game at noon Sunday.
The Black and Gold are coming off a 4-0 midweek victory over Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday and a series sweep of Houston last weekend.
UCF head coach Renee Luers-Gillispie will likely stick with her normal weekend rotation. Freshman Mackenzie Audas (21-7, 1.05 ERA) is expected to start twice, and senior Ali Schmidt (13-3, 1.61 ERA) is expected to start once for the Knights.
Audas, coming off her first-career no-hitter against Bethune-Cookman, will be matched up against her strongest competition for C-USA Pitcher of the Year in Andi Williamson. Audas and Williamson rank first and second in the conference respectively in wins, strikeouts and batting average against.
The Knights enter this weekend atop all of the major statistical pitching categories in C-USA, including wins (39), ERA (1.45), opponents' batting average (.203), strikeouts (349), saves (5) and fewest home runs allowed (20).
UCF fans can watch and listen to all of the action live on UCF All-Access. Fans can also follow all of the action on UCFAthletics.com's Gametracker as well as www.twitter.com/UCF_Softball.