ORLANDO – The No. 20 UCF softball team completed the sweep and shutout Memphis on the weekend as it earned an 8-0 win in six innings on Sunday to improve to 6-0 in American Athletic Conference play.
"I like how we scored early and just kept ticking away each inning with the whole lineup," said head coach Cindy Ball-Malone. "We got to play a little small-ball, run and get some big hits when we needed them."
The Knights got on the board in the first inning yet again, plating three runs in the frame. Johneisha Rowe led things off with an infield single, followed by Kennedy Searcy earning a single of her own. Jada Cody reached on a fielder's choice to load the bases. With one gone, Denali Schappacher smacked one to left field, pushing a run across on the sacrifice fly to improve her career-best RBI total of 14 this season. The inning kept rolling as Ashleigh Griffin stepped up next and smashed a double into the left-center field gap to score Searcy and Cody.
UCF added one more in the bottom of the second as Searcy hit a ball that had eyes through the right side with two outs to score Rowe to make it 4-0.
The Knights tacked on one more as Savannah Adams came in to pinch hit and drew a walk on 10 pitches with the bases loaded to make it 5-0. The next two hitters couldn't do anything as the Black and Gold left the bases loaded with one out.
UCF continued its theme of scoring in every inning as they added two more in the fourth to make it a 7-0 lead. Searcy led off the inning with a single and eventually went 3-for-3 on the day, followed by a Cody single. Katie Burge came in to pinch run for Searcy. Both runners advanced on a passed ball, bringing Doherty to the plate. The slugger laid down a beautiful bunt, in which Memphis tried to throw home to nail Burge but failed as Burge dodged the tag with an evasive slide. Maddie Bejarano added the second run of the inning to the scoreboard with a sacrifice fly, scoring Doherty.
Bejarano brought the ballgame and the series to a close with a two out single to right-center, scoring Damaria Cannon who entered as a pinch runner, to knock off Memphis in run-rule fashion in the bottom of the sixth.
Cannon came on to pinch run for Ashleigh Griffin, who finished the day going 2-for-2 with two doubles, two RBI and two walks. Sunday was the first time that Griffin doubled twice in a single game as she now has six on the season. She's tallied three of those doubles this week, one against No. 5 Virginia Tech on Monday and two against Memphis. Griffin had a fantastic week, leading the team with a .417 average with three doubles, a home run and seven RBI. She drew a total of five walks and earned a 1.505 OPS over the Knights' last five games.
Kaitlyn Felton continued the trend of dominating Memphis batters, holding them to just two hits, their lowest total of the weekend. She needed just 75 pitches to earn her fourth win of the season, striking out three Tigers and walking just two in the process. UCF pitchers have held their opponents to three hits or less over the last four games while combining to gather 24 straight shutout innings.
"She's been following the trend of what Gianna and Kama are doing," said Ball-Malone. "I like how they compete against each other and take good care of each other in the bullpen."
The Knights have swept their first two conference series for the first time since 2019 when they swept UConn in Orlando and earned three victories at ECU. As a team, UCF is hitting .311 in conference play this season while holding South Florida and Memphis to a combined .129 batting average. Rowe and Searcy have been phenomenal at the top of the lineup in league play, batting .500 and .563 at the top two spots in the order.
UCF sits alone at the top of The American standings with a clean 6-0 record. Houston sits in second with a 7-1-1 conference record, followed by Wichita State at 4-2 and South Florida at 5-4. Tulsa, East Carolina and Memphis make up the bottom half of the standings at 1-4-1, 2-7 and 1-8 respectively.
UP NEXT
The Knights will host ECU on Thursday through Saturday as they continue American Athletic Conference play. Game one starts at 6 p.m. on Thursday, followed by an identical start time on Friday and a 2 p.m. start on Saturday.
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