ORLANDO – The No. 24 UCF softball team defeated Ohio State by a score of 11-3 in six innings, extending their winning streak to 12 games.
"Ohio State has a great pitching staff, and they showed that last weekend," said head coach Cindy Ball-Malone. "As a team, we love to study that and come up to a plan, and we do well when we stick to that plan and approach. I love how we stayed off some of their pitches that they'd been getting swings and misses on and waited for them to bring the ball into the zone that we were looking for."
Ohio State was first on the board as Sam Hackenbracht homered in the Buckeyes' first at-bats to make it 1-0.
The first inning found more scoring, this time from the Knights. After two walks by Johneshia Rowe and Kennedy Searcy, Jada Cody doubled to center field, scoring Rowe and advancing Searcy for her NCAA- leading 41st RBI, tying the game at one. Later in the inning, Ashleigh Griffin singled to center, scoring Searcy, giving the Knights a 2-1 lead.
Hackenbracht was at it again for the Buckeyes as she hit her second home run of the game to right field in the third, making it a tie ball game again at 2-2.
A walk and an error led to two baserunners in the bottom of the third for Shannon Doherty. She promptly doubled to left field, scoring both runners and advancing to third on a throwing error, giving UCF the 4-2 lead. The next batter was Griffin who launched a 2-run homer, giving the Black and Gold the 6-2 advantage. Denali Schappacher then tripled to right field with one out for seventh career triple, tying her with Tawny Swan for sixth place for all-time triples in program history.
Doherty added another RBI in the fourth as she singled to right center with two on for a 7-2 lead. She finished the game going 3-for-4, with three RBI as she raised her batting average to .375, leading the team.
The runs kept coming for the Knights in the fifth. Micaela Macario tripled to right center, her first of her career, scoring both baserunners putting the team up 9-2.
Back-to-back walks for the Buckeyes started the top of the sixth. With one out, Niki Carver was hit by the pitch loading the bases. Kami Kortokrax singled up the middle, scoring the runner from third, as the score was now 9-3.
The Black and Gold cashed in on a Doherty double which led to another RBI for Griffin, singling up the middle to score the run. Griffin also had an impressive game going 3-for-4, with four RBI. Tuesday's game was the first three hit and four RBI game for Griffin in her career. After a Schappacher walk, pinch-hitter Damaria Cannon singled to third. The throw popped out of the first baseman's mitt, allowing pinch-runner Katie Burge to score, ending the ball-game in a walk-off run-rule decision.
Grace Jewell got the win, improving her to 2-2 on the season as she went five innings allowing three earned runs on four hits while striking out one. Kaitlyn Felton finished the game for the Knights, tossing the final inning.
Shannon Doherty continues her season-high on base streak, extending it to 15 games. Griffin also extended her career-high on base streak, bringing it to 11 games. The Knights drew a half dozen walks in the contest, extending their national leading total to 140 walks in 2022.
The win allows UCF to improve to 6-2 all-time against Ohio State. Coming into this week UCF was ranked 19th in the RPI. Ohio State came into Tuesday's game ranked 20th in the RPI, giving the Knights another quality RPI victory. The Buckeyes came into the day receiving votes in the NFCA along with USA Today.
Ohio State statistically has one of the best pitching staffs in the country as they were ranked 16th in ERA coming into the game. Each pitcher on the staff came into the night with a sub-2.00 ERA. Starting pitcher Allison Smith now has an ERA of 2.65, along with her teammate Lexie Handley who owns a 2.08 ERA after Tuesday's game. The Buckeyes came into the game with an opposing batting average of .183. As a team, the Knights hit .429 on the team going 12-for-28, with half being for extra bases.
UP NEXT
The Knights will play their first three-game series of the season as they host Furman starting Saturday. The two will play a double header at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. before playing the final game of the series on Sunday at noon.
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