ORLANDO – For the first time since 2016, UCF Softball is headed to the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Division I Softball committee announced the 64-team field that will compete in the 2021 NCAA Softball Tournament on Sunday and the Knights (39-17-1) will head to Tallahassee, Florida to take on Auburn (27-22) to begin the tournament on Friday, May 21 at 2:00 p.m. ET.
The Knights' game with the Tigers will be broadcasted live on ESPN2. If the Knights win, they will move on to play the winner of Florida State/Kennesaw State. The regional is double elimination. To view the full, 64-team bracket, click here.
The winner of the Tallahassee Regional will move on to face the winner of the Baton Rouge Regional, which features overall seventh seed LSU, McNeese State, George Washington and Louisiana Lafayette.
A total of 31 conferences were awarded an automatic qualification, while the remaining 33 positions were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket. The Knights were a part of the latter group.
2021 will mark UCF's eighth appearance in the NCAA Tournament in its 20-year history. In their last time out in 2016, the Knights fell to No. 1 Florida in the first round.
"It's so exciting [to be selected to the NCAA Tournament]," said head coach Cindy Ball-Malone. "This was something that we set out to do last year, and to see it comes through and to be able to live it out now, there are really no words to describe it.
"I'm really proud of this group. This has been a grind and a tough year, so to be able to get back into the postseason is awesome."
The Knights are coming off a weekend that saw them go 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference Championship Tournament, including wins over ECU and South Florida, before falling to No. 25 Wichita State in the championship game. It was the Knights' third AAC Tournament championship appearance in program history (2014, 2015 and 2021).
The Knights' 39 wins as of May 16 are the most wins UCF has posted in a season since 2015. The Black and Gold also have three wins over top-five ranked teams in the country to this point in the season, taking down then No. 5 Florida twice (March 24, 8-6 and April 14, 7-0) and No. 2 Arizona (March 8, 2-0). UCF has played 12 games against a top-25 opponent in 2021, posting a 4-7-1 in those games.
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