ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) – UCF baseball finished its fall practices last week with the Iron Knight Challenge. The grueling strength and conditioning event is designed to build team camaraderie and help inspire positivity when faced with adversity.
"It's just something different than competing at the game of baseball," head coach Greg Lovelady said. "I think any time you do something as a team competitively, you get an opportunity to learn to work together more efficiently."
Six team captains each drafted five to six players forming squads within the team. The players then competed in three or four events each day for one week. Events were designed to include both strength and endurance and featured individual and team challenges such as distance runs, stair climbs, tug-o-war, sled pulls and others.
"In the course of doing three or four events every day for a week, the end of that week can be really challenging," Lovelady said. "I wanted to see who likes to compete and who is mentally tough. It gave me some good insight and the kids really got into it."
The winning team was led by outfielder Eli Putnam, who also turned in the top individual performance claiming a commemorative broad sword and locker-room bragging rights. Two other members of Putnam's squad also finished in the top-10 for individual points.
The Knights regular season campaign is slated to begin mid-February.
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