CLEARWATER, Fla. – No. 14 UCF softball head coach Cindy Ball-Malone expressed the sentiment to her team prior to first pitch of the Knights' TaxAct Clearwater Invitational finale Sunday night.
The Knights had been in each of their first four games during the tournament and easily could have entered its Sunday evening tilt with a 3-1 record during the weekend, if not 4-0. Following the Knights' six-run win over the No. 25 Michigan Wolverines Friday afternoon, though, a late Texas A&M rally and a pair of extra-inning losses to No. 16 Duke and No. 12 Alabama had the Knights looking to snap a three-game skid against Mississippi State in primetime Sunday evening.
UCF gave its ESPN2 viewing audience a show, as the Knights (5-5, 0-0 AAC) snatched a gutsy early-season win courtesy of a sixth-inning, pinch-hit triple by Katie Burge and a subsequent RBI single by Shannon Doherty to lift their squad to a 6-5 win over the Bulldogs (6-4, 0-0 SEC) in the final game of the 2023 Clearwater Invitational.
It looked like the Knights may have been destined for extra innings for a third straight game, after the Bulldogs chipped away at UCF's early 5-2 lead to eventually tie the game at five runs apiece by the sixth inning. Ball-Malone made the choice to pinch-hit Burge for freshman outfielder Olivia Elliott, who had come through herself in a big way earlier in the evening with a two-run double off the center field wall.
The move paid off. Burge laced an 0-1 offering past a diving Mississippi State shortstop and into the left-center field gap, and the speedy junior raced around the infield to represent the go-ahead run just 60 feet away with nobody out following the second triple of her career.
Later in the frame, then with two outs, it was Doherty's turn to play hero. The veteran first baseman ripped the first pitch of her at-bat into virtually the same spot as Burge, and with a one-run lead, junior southpaw Angelina DeVoe (3-2, 2.62) slammed the door shut with a spotless seventh.
The Knights, as they had done throughout their previous nine games on the young season entering Sunday evening, jumped out to an early lead. Despite the 5-2 lead UCF held following the second inning, Sunday marked only the Knights' second game of the season during which they did not find the scoreboard first (outside of the team's 7-0 loss to Texas A&M).
Junior transfer Chloe Evans, one of the conference's most productive hitters through the season's first two weeks, came through for her team once more in the bottom of the first inning in response to an early Mississippi State run. With Micaela Macario on second and two outs, Evans hit the first pitch of her at-bat down the right field line to tie the game at one.
The hit marked Evans' fifth double of the season, and the Seymour, Wisconsin, native is now hitting .375/.429/.812 with eight extra-base hits (five doubles, three homers) and 12 RBI in 10 games, with at least one hit in all but one contest.
The Bulldogs answered with a run in the second inning against Knights starter Kaitlyn Felton, and UCF's offense again went to work in the bottom of the frame. UCF plated four runs, courtesy of RBI singles by Jasmine Williams and Jada Cody, and a booming two-run double by Elliott.
Elliott, not far from where she grew up in Tampa, earned a second consecutive start following her first career home run in the Knights' loss to Alabama Saturday evening. The freshman, after her first collegiate double Sunday, has now gone 2-for-her-last-4 with a home run, double and three RBI.
In the winning effort, Williams also recorded her second multi-hit game of the season and has hit safely in three straight games for the second time. Cody, meanwhile, recorded her 126th career RBI with her single, leaving her just five away from a tie with Jazmine Esparza, who was a Knight from 2017-21, for fourth place on the UCF all-time list.
Felton produced another solid appearance, contributing at least five innings in a game for the second time this season, and first since her 13-strikeout, seven-inning complete-game against UMass Feb. 10.
DeVoe, in turn, was a steady presence out of the bullpen once the Bulldogs had tied the game at five. She struck out the first two hitters she faced to lead the Knights out of the sixth inning and recorded two more strikeouts in the top of the seventh in retiring each of the five hitters she faced.
Her four strikeouts marked a single-game career-high, and after collecting three total strikeouts in 14.2 innings of work a season ago, DeVoe has now collected 15 in 18.2 this season including four appearances with at least three punchouts as she continues to take on added responsibilities in the Knights' 2023 bullpen.
UP NEXT
UCF will take a Monday day off to recover from their five games in three days in Clearwater before welcoming Louisiana to Orlando Tuesday evening. First pitch from the UCF Softball Complex is scheduled for 6 p.m.