ORLANDO, Fla. – When the Knights needed it most, Grace Jewell stepped up and delivered.
With her team mired in a five-game losing streak with close defeats to top-25 teams scattered throughout, the junior right-hander brought the skid to a screeching halt Friday night, authoring a masterful performance in her third career complete-game shutout and leading (RV) UCF over the visiting Toledo Rockets, 2-0, at the UCF Softball Complex.
"My first pitch strikes and getting ground balls for my defense," Jewell said of her Friday keys to success. "I just wanted to get my team back in the dugout."
The Chesapeake, Virginia, native began her night with a pair of perfect innings and later retired 15 of the first 17 Rockets (5-10, 0-0 MAC) hitters she faced, including her first strikeout of the evening for the final out of the third inning.
Jewell did it with the help of steady defense behind her, inducing weak contact throughout the evening highlighted by seven groundouts in her first five innings of work. She collected her second punchout of the evening to lead off the sixth inning and kept her cool after Toledo put a pair of runners on with back-to-back one-out singles.
Facing graduate student outfielder Anna Dixon, Jewell induced yet another ground ball to freshman Aubrey Evans at second base. Evans quickly collected the ball and flipped it to Jasmine Williams at shortstop, whose strong throw to first completed the 4-6-3 double play and sent the Knights (11-13, 0-0 AAC) back to the dugout unscathed.
"I think it's exactly what we needed. We talked about playing the game solid on all sides of the ball, and I love how our defense stayed in the game," added head coach Cindy Ball-Malone. "Grace kept the momentum, real quick game, and then offensively, we got runners on and got the clutch hit."
UCF was finally able to break through against Rockets starter Erin Hunt in the bottom half when pinch-hitter Kennedy Searcy led off the frame with a bunt single and a steal of second base. Williams pushed the go-ahead run to third with a bunt of her own that she nearly beat for an infield single, which brought Jada Cody to the plate with a runner on third and one out.
Sitting at 132 career RBI, Cody continued the small-ball theme with a safety squeeze bunt that allowed Searcy to scamper home just ahead of Hunt's flip to home plate. With the 133rd RBI of her career, Cody inched ever closer to overtaking Farrah Sullivan's career total of 136 for third place on the UCF all-time list.
The Knights weren't finished, as Evans etched another chapter in her standout debut season, swatting an RBI double to left-center field to plate Cody and provide her squad with a second insurance run.
"Coach Bear called the numbers out, and I knew exactly that that pitch was going to come to me," Evans said of the double play. "Coach Jenn [Salling] talked with me earlier in the game [about how] certain pitches with certain locations, just to know where to go. I couldn't do it without 'Jas,' for sure. A smooth play, and I was excited for Grace, because she deserved that.
"I was just trying to do what the team needed me to do, and that was to put the ball in play and score some more runs," Evans added of her double. "I got my hands up to it and I was able to drive in the run."
The tallies were more than enough for Jewell, who slammed the door shut in the seventh, including her third strikeout of the night. Utilizing just 73 pitches, Jewell yielded just four hits and no walks in her second shutout of the season, and her first since her six-inning effort in the first game of the Knights' doubleheader against Gardner-Webb Feb. 23. The first shutout of her career was also a four-hit, seven-inning display, during which she collected six strikeouts against DePaul Feb. 26, 2022.
Jewell also produced her third appearance of six innings (or more) this season and her second in her last three starts after limiting the high-powered offense of the No. 2 UCLA Bruins to just two runs in 6.1 innings during the 2023 Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton, California March 3.
"That game just showed me that I don't have to do too much, and that I'm good enough to be here," Jewell said. "What I do is working, I just have to keep doing it."
UP NEXT
The Knights continue play in the UCF Round Robin tournament with a doubleheader Saturday afternoon, first taking on the Rockets once more at 3 p.m. before meeting the Kennesaw State Owls in the nightcap at 5:30 p.m.