| #20 UCF at #7 Florida Wed., Feb. 30, 6 p.m. ET WATCH (SEC Network+) | LIVE STATS |
ORLANDO – The No. 20 UCF softball team is set to battle No. 7 Florida for the second time this season as they'll travel to Gainesville to play the Gators at 6 p.m.
It was a shootout the last time the Knights and Gators met, resulting in a 12-11 final in favor of Florida. A total of 27 hits were accumulated as well as five errors, four on the Black and Gold, all resulting in the 23 runs. In the contest back on Feb. 27, UCF was the first to jump on the scoreboard, plating two runs in the bottom of the first inning as Shannon Doherty and Denali Schappacher collected RBI singles. The Gators retaliated in a big way in the top of the second, scoring seven runs thanks to a 2 RBI double and a pair of homers to make it 7-2. The Knights answered with two runs in the second and another three in the third to knot things up at 7-7. Florida went up one in the top of the fourth, only to see UCF score another three in their half thanks to a streak of three straight doubles and a throwing error to make it 10-8. Florida grabbed a pair in the fifth and sixth innings to take a 12-10 lead. The Knights answered with one in the home half of the sixth but were unable to find the tying run in the bottom of the seventh.
UCF has only lost one game since that 12-11 loss to then No. 4 Florida, going 19-1 in that time. Following the Florida game, the Knights beat Oakland 3-0 followed by a 5-2 loss to South Carolina. After that loss, the Black and Gold began their current 18-game winning streak, beating FGCU three times and South Carolina once before heading to California and coming back with seven wins. After going undefeated on a West Coast swing for the first time in program history, the Knights came home to demolish an Ohio State team that was receiving votes by a score of 11-3. They followed that up with a sweep of Furman in which UCF outscored the Paladins 25-4 and the recent sweep of South Florida in Tampa, which is the first time the Knights have swept the Bulls in program history.
The Knights' 18-game winning streak is the second longest in program history and is currently the third-longest active streak in college softball. Oklahoma is first with 30 straight wins thanks to a 30-0 start to 2022, followed by UCLA with 21 straight wins. UCF has three hitters batting over .420 during the winning streak and seven total hitting over .350. Jada Cody leads the way with a .463 batting average with nine home runs and 37 RBI, followed by Denali Schappacher who is hitting .435 and Kennedy Searcy who boasts a .422 clip. UCF pitchers have posted a 1.78 ERA during the streak while holding batters to a .211 batting average and striking out 111 of them. 72 of those punchouts belong to Gianna Mancha. As a team, the Knights have only made six errors during the winning streak, just two more than they made in the single game against Florida earlier this year.
Gianna Mancha has been lights out from the circle over her last three appearances, earning back-to-back American Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Week honors as well as this week's D1Softball Pitcher of the Week award. She tossed her second-career no-hitter against Furman on Mar. 19 and followed that up by beating one of the best pitchers in the game head-to-head in games one and three of the South Florida series. She pitched her third one-hitter of the season in the series finale against the Bulls, earning the 3-0 victory. She 112 strikeouts this season rank 36th in the country while her 12 victories and four shutouts rank 19th and 21st respectively. Mancha has dropped her ERA all the way to 1.85.
Cody continues to smash softballs and drive in runs and remains the queen of college softball in RBI, leading the country with 53. She is just seven away from a tie of the second-highest single-season RBI total in program history and 13 away from a tie of the first. Both records are held by Stephanie Best who tallied 66 RBI in 2003 and 60 in 2005.
The Gators were undefeated when the Knights played them in February but have since hit a bit of a tough spot in their schedule. They are now 27-5, going 5-4 in SEC play and have accumulated a 6-4 record over their last 10 games. They are coming off a series loss to No. 14 Tennessee where they won the final contest of a three-game set 4-1 at home. Prior to that, they beat Stetson 7-0 before winning a series against Texas A&M and Mississippi State, both by winning two games and dropping one. In total, Florida is 14-4 at home while the Knights are 8-0 in true road games and 13-4 when including neutral site games.
As a team, the Gators are top 35 in the country in major offensive categories. They are 9th in the nation in batting average with a .342 mark, 10th in on base percentage with a .424 on-base percentage, 16th in runs per game, averaging 6.59 a contest and have a .510 slugging percentage, ranking 32nd. In the circle, Florida is just as good as they have a 1.92 staff ERA, good enough for 20th in the country, and hold hitters to a .170 batting average. Florida is second in the country in fielding percentage at .984.
Seven batters are batting over .300 this year for Florida, including two hitting over .425. Skylar Wallace leads the Gators with a .439 batting average, followed closely by Kendra Falby who is hitting .429. Wallace leads the squad with 12 extra base hits while Regan Walsh has five homers. In the circle, Elizabeth Hightower has tossed 62.1 innings pitched while Lexie Delbrey is close behind at 62.0. The two have a 1.68 and 2.37 ERA's respectively. Delbrey has the edge in strikeouts, punching out 75 batters so far.
Florida leads the all-time series against the Knights 22-6, but it's been UCF who has come out on top more times than not in recent memory. The Black and Gold have come out on top in two of the last three meetings and in three of the last five. The Knights swept the Gators in last season's home-and-home, walking-off with an 8-6 win at home on Mar. 24 before shutting out Florida in their own stadium by a score of 7-0 on Apr. 14. This is just the fourth time in program history that the two sides will have played an in-season home-and-home, with previous years being 2010, 2012 and 2021. Oddly enough, UCF went to the NCAA Tournament in all-three of those campaigns, winding up in the Gainesville Regional in 2010 and 2012.
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