ORLANDO – The UCF softball team concluded its penultimate day of the SpaceU Classic with a dominant 8-0, run-rule victory over the Columbia Lions before falling in its nightcap to the Ohio State Buckeyes, 7-3.
The Black and Gold’s contest against Columbia, the squad’s 11th win of the season and fourth straight, served as one of UCF’s more all-around complete games of the young campaign that saw junior transfer right-hander Lena Elkins turn in a dominant outing supported by a prolific showing by her offense.
UCF struck for three early scores in the home half of the first inning, cashing in on a leadoff Sierra Humphreys walk and Stormy Kotzelnick double to put a pair of runners in scoring position.
Freshman infielder/outfielder Izzy Mertes, who entered the contest representing her team’s third-leading hitter with a .362 average (17-for-47), shot a ground ball through the right side of the infield to plate both teammates and give UCF an early 2-0 advantage. A Samantha Rey RBI groundout would later push the Knights’ lead to three prior to conclusion of the frame.
Kotzelnick’s double, her third of the season, was one of three hit in the contest by the Black and Gold to push the team’s Big 12 Conference-leading total to 26, joining two-baggers by Mertes later in the contest and Ashleigh Griffin.
Mertes’ double came in the bottom of the third inning, a key hit that plated Kotzelnick’s leadoff single. Moments later, Griffin produced a well-executed squeeze bunt that forced home Macy Miles, who pinch-ran for Kendall Yarnell after the latter was hit by a pitch following Kotzelnick’s hit. Freshman catcher Beth Damon then drove in her team’s sixth run of the afternoon and third of the inning with an infield single off the Columbia first baseman.
A fielder’s choice play off Mertes’ bat in the fourth helped plate Kotzelnick to give UCF its seventh score, and Griffin’s double came later in the frame, driving in pinch-runner Taylor Kittleman from first base to give UCF the eight runs it needed for its second run-rule victory of the spring.
Elkins, meanwhile, was dominant in the circle, yielding just one hit and a trio of walks in notching her first shutout as a Knight. She earned her first strikeout of the evening in a perfect first inning, worked around a leadoff single and a two-out walk in the second, and shrugged off a UCF error in the third with her third punchout.
The right-hander later induced a pair of popouts and a groundout in the top of the fourth before finishing off her effort with a 1-2-3 fifth inning.
The later contest against the Buckeyes was one that was added to the schedule just days prior, and represented a new opportunity for both teams after the programs played to a weather-abbreviated tie during the 2025 Shriners Children’s Clearwater Invitational.
Fifth year senior Madison Simon led her team’s offense with one of her strongest games yet as a Knight, hitting her first UCF home run and later adding UCF’s 27th double, and her third, of the spring.
An RBI single by Ashleigh Griffin got UCF started in the bottom of the first inning, cutting into a 2-0 first-inning lead taken by Ohio State.
After the Buckeyes then struck back with a run in the top of the second, Simon led off the home half with a long home run out to left-center field, again trimming the visitors’ lead to one.
Her run-scoring double answered another Ohio State tally in the top of the third, pulling UCF back to within one following the third inning, 4-3.
Three runs in the top of the fourth inning broke the game open for the Buckeyes, though, and despite seven strikeouts by freshman Yessenia Lopez in relief, the Knights dropped their first game of the homestand, 7-3.
UP NEXT
UCF looks to bounce back in the team’s final game of the weekend against FGCU Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The contest will not be streamed on ESPN+.
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