ORLANDO – The spring 2025 softball season is in full swing, and with a strong showing throughout its weekend Black & Gold Classic in the rear-view mirror, the UCF softball team is set to take on a challenging week-long stretch of its non-conference schedule that features seven total games, including five against ranked opponents.
The squad will meet the first two of their upcoming five ranked foes as it concludes its season-opening eight-game homestand, welcoming No. 15 Missouri to Orlando Tuesday evening before it faces No. 20 Liberty Wednesday.
When they next take the field, the Knights will do so having won five of their first six games throughout the season’s first weekend against CSU Bakersfield, NC State, James Madison and Illinois. The squad’s lone defeat came in a hard-fought contest against then-No. 12 Georgia Thursday evening.
“It was definitely fun and exciting,” said sophomore infielder Samantha Rey. “I love this team and playing with them every day. We’re just taking it one pitch at a time, making adjustments and fighting in every inning.”
Head coach Cindy Ball-Malone’s pitching staff spearheaded the team’s efforts during the tournament, buoyed by timely offensive contributions in key moments that aided in pushing the program out to its second consecutive 5-1 start. Prior to the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the last time the Knights earned consecutive 5-1 beginnings were in 2020 and 2021.
All six arms on the Knights’ roster saw action during the weekend festivities, led by true freshman Yessenia Lopez’s 11 innings pitched and senior Kaitlyn Felton’s 10.2.
The duo co-lead their staff with nine strikeouts apiece, while Felton and junior transfer Lena Elkins spun UCF’s first two seven-inning complete games of the spring. Redshirt freshman Isabella Vega produced a dominant outing in her first career appearance as well, tossing a three-hit, five-inning shutout against the CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners in the Knights’ season-opener.
Ball-Malone’s staff collectively boasts an aggregate 1.23 ERA with a .213 batting average-against through six games, and outside of yielding four runs to the 12th-ranked Bulldogs in their lone loss thus far, the six yielded a combined four runs spanning their five victories.
UCF’s 1.23 ERA ranks 18th in the nation and second in the Big 12 Conference entering play Tuesday, trailing only BYU’s 0.82 mark. The Knights are also one of just three teams in the league to record multiple shutouts during the season’s first weekend, joining Texas Tech (3) and Arizona (2).
Offensively, the team was paced by 2024 unanimous All-Big 12 Freshmen Rey and Sierra Humphreys. Humphreys’ team-best .647 slugging percentage is built upon her team-leading four doubles, a category in which she not only ranks third in the nation, but also tied for first in the Big 12 with Arizona’s Kaiah Altmeyer.
Rey, in addition to earning a spot on ESPN SportsCenter’s Sunday Top 10 Plays segment with her dazzling diving grab against James Madison, owns a team-leading .467 average (7-for-15) and joins freshmen Beth Damon, Izzy Mertes and Coco Jaimes as the fourth member of UCF’s roster to produce a spotless 1.000 fielding percentage in at least 10 chances.
After missing out on earning their first ranked win of the season against the 12th-ranked Bulldogs Thursday, the Knights have another chance against the 15th-ranked Tigers Tuesday. Missouri is off to a 4-1 start to the new season after partaking in the NFCA Division I Leadoff Classic in Clearwater, highlighted by key ranked wins over No. 7 Duke (10-3) and No. 18 Northwestern (3-0).
This week’s matchup is a continuation of a trend of recent meetings between the two programs as well, as the Knights and Tigers will have clashed in each of the last three seasons, including 2025, and in four of the last five.
When UCF matches up with the 20th-ranked Flames for the program’s Pink-Out game Wednesday night, the team will look to remain perfect in the squads’ eighth all-time matchup. The Black and Gold boast a perfect 7-0 all-time record against Liberty, having outscored the Flames by an aggregate 30-11 in that span.
Liberty is off to a blemish-less 5-0 start to its season, having outscored its opposition by a collective 32-12, including one shutout, against Radford, Louisville, Cleveland State and Rutgers at THE Spring Games in Leesburg, Florida.
Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.
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