ORLANDO – Fresh off a series win at Baylor last weekend and with the Big 12 Tournament on the horizon, the UCF baseball team will close its 2026 regular season by hosting Kansas State this weekend at John Euliano Park.
The series will run Thursday to Saturday, May 14-16. Thursday and Friday’s games are set to begin at 6 p.m., while Saturday’s regular-season finale is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. All three games will air live on ESPN+ as well as on the radio on FM 96.9 The Game and the iHeartRadio app. Live stats will also be available for all three games by visiting UCF.StatBroadcast.com.
The Knights will enter the final regular season series with a 29-19 overall record and in a tie for third place in the Big 12 standings with a 17-10 league record. The 17 conference wins mark a program-best since joining the Big 12 Conference prior to the 2024 campaign. UCF will also enter this weekend’s series having won six Big 12 series which ties the 2024 season for the most league series won as members of the Big 12.
Friday night will mark Senior Knight for UCF. A total of 14 Black and Gold seniors will be honored prior to Friday’s contest in pitchers Chandler Dorsey, Roman Kimball, Kevin Schoneboom and Kris Sosnowski; catchers Zak Skinner and Mason Wilson; infielders Braden Calise, Javier Crespo, Cayden Gaskin and Landon Moran; and outfielders Noah Rabin, JD Rogers, DeAmez Ross and John Smith III.
The Black and Gold, who are currently receiving votes for this week’s NCBWA Top 25 Poll, will enter the final weekend just three games back of first-place Kansas as well as one game up on fifth and six-place Oklahoma State and TCU. The top six seeds for next week’s Big 12 Baseball Tournament Presented by Allstate will receive a double-bye and not open play in the tournament until the quarterfinal round next Thursday.
Last weekend, the Knights’ bats came alive in Waco as they outscored Baylor a combined 34-11 over the three games to take the series. UCF took the first two games of the series by scores of 8-0 and 19-3, before the Bears responded on Sunday to claim the finale by a score of 8-7.
In Friday’s series opener, a trio of UCF pitchers combined to shut Baylor out. Sophomore Mateo Gray tossed the first 4.1 innings and allowed just four hits while striking out one. Freshman Max Murray followed by tossing 2.1 innings of solid relief in which he struck out five and gave up just one hit, while redshirt freshman Anthony Lariz finished off the combined shutout with 2.1 innings of hitless relief.
Offensively, freshman Jordan Lodise hit out a three-run first inning home run in Friday’s opener and Javier Crespo and Landon Moran led the way in the game with three hits apiece.
Junior starter Camden Wicker then tossed 5.2 solid innings of work in game two on Saturday and the offense exploded for season-best tallies of 19 runs and 22 hits en route to earning a run-rule victory. In all, 10 different Knights posted hits on the day with six different players recording multiple hits.
The senior Ross led the way with a career-best five hits with a double, a stolen base, two runs scored and four RBIs. Rogers also drove in four runs in the game, while Smith III, Skinner and Moran were next with three hits apiece.
Ross and Smith III got the Knights off to a strong start in Sunday’s finale as Ross blasted out a three-run home run and Smith III followed up by going back-to-back. The Bears responded as the game went back and forth from there until BU managed to pull ahead midway through the contest. UCF looked to stage a late comeback with a run in the eighth and then loaded the bases in the ninth but couldn’t get the tying run across, as Baylor held on to salvage a game in the series.
Smith III and Ross led the way for the Knights in the series. Smith III hit .533 with three doubles a home run, three runs scored and six RBIs, while Ross batted an even .500 with a homer, a double, four runs scored and an impressive nine runs batted in over the three games. Moran (.462), Crespo (.455) and Skinner (.429) all also hit over .400 on the weekend. Gray tossed 4.1 innings of scoreless baseball, while Wicker went 1-0 after allowing just two runs on seven hits while striking out one over 5.2 innings.
Season Leaders
The senior catcher Skinner paces the Knights at the plate with a .367 batting average and 66 hits. Smith III is next with a .341 clip. He also leads the Knights in the power numbers with 12 home runs and 48 RBIs. Crespo follows with a .333 average, while Andrew Williamson follows with a .319 average and team-leading tallies of 26 extra-base hits and 51 runs scored. Camden Wicker is the club’s top starting pitcher with a 5-2 record, 3.36 ERA and a team-best 53 strikeouts in 61.2 innings. The trio of Kris Sosnowski (2.10 ERA, 4 SV), Evan Jones (3.08 ERA, 4 SV) and Kevin Schoneboom (3.48 ERA, 1 SV) lead the way from the bullpen.
The 200 Club
Both seniors Zak Skinner and DeAmez Ross reached the 200-hit club for their careers in the same game on May 9 at Baylor. Skinner achieved the feat in just three seasons at the Division I level while Ross did it in his fourth year. Fellow senior Landon Moran also notched his 200th career hit earlier in the season.
About Kansas State
The Wildcats will come to Orlando with a 27-24 overall record and currently looking to secure a spot in the Big 12 Tournament, as they’ll enter the weekend in 11th place in the conference standings with a 10-17 league record. K-State has dropped nine of their last 10 games. They snapped a nine-game losing streak on Sunday in a 5-2 win over Cincinnati. Kansas State has dropped three straight league series with setbacks to Kansas, West Virginia and Cincinnati. K-State holds Big 12 series wins on the year over Houston, Oklahoma State and Arizona.
Kansas State was picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 this season after taking sixth a season ago with a 32-26 overall record and a 17-13 league mark. The Wildcats had their 2025 season come to a close in the Austin Regional.
Carlos Vasquez leads K-State with a .367 batting average. Shortstop Dee Kennedy is right behind him with a .364 average. He paces the team in nearly every statistical category with 20 home runs, 16 doubles, two ripples, 63 runs scored, 67 RBIs, a .768 slugging percentage, .465 on-base percentage and 20 stolen bases. AJ Evasco is next with a .342 average, while Ty Smolinski follows with a .336 batting average and is tied for the team lead in doubles with 16. Lincoln Sheffield leads the starting rotation with a 6-3 record, two complete games and a 4.96 ERA, while fellow starter James Guyette is the reigning Big 12 Co-Pitcher of the Week after tossing a complete-game victory over Cincinnati last weekend. Guyette is tops on the team in strikeouts with 99 punchouts over 73.2 innings. Tazwell Butler holds a team-best three saves and 47 strikeouts from the bullpen.
K-State is coached by Pete Hughes. Hughes is in his eighth season in Manhattan and his 29th season overall. He holds 879 career victories under his belt.
All-Time Series vs. K-State
Thursday’s series opener will mark the seventh all-time meeting between the Knights and Wildcats. The series is currently all tied up at 3-3. UCF first took two of three at home in 2024, but K-State responded by taking two of three in Manhattan last season. The Black and Gold’s victory last season was a 15-3 win in the series opener on April 11.
2026 Big 12 Tournament Presented by Allstate
The 2026 Big 12 Baseball Tournament will take place at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona, for the first time. The top 12 teams in the conference standings will qualify for the event. The tournament will run Tuesday-Saturday, May 19-23, and will be single elimination. The bottom four teams will open the tournament with the first two games on Tuesday, May 19. The top six seeds will receive a double-bye and will not begin the tournament until the quarterfinal round on Thursday, May 21.
Wicker Tabbed Big 12 Pitcher of the Week
Junior right-hander Camden Wicker was named the Big 12 Co-Pitcher of the Week on April 27 after tossing a seven-inning complete-game shutout on April 25 at Utah. Wicker tied a career-long by tossing 7.0 dominant innings in which he allowed just two hits and no runs while striking out five and walking just two. He allowed just four baserunners to reach in the contest and faced the minimum in three of his seven innings of work.
Ranked Knights
By entering the top 25 on March 30, the Knights have now been ranked in each of head coach Rich Wallace’s three seasons at the helm of UCF baseball. In his first year in 2024, Wallace helped the Black and Gold spend two weeks in the national rankings in early April and ranked as high as No. 17 by D1Baseball and 16th by the NCBWA. Last season, the Knights spent a week ranked 25th by Perfect Game in mid-March. UCF is 8-14 when ranked in the Rich Wallace era.
After entering the D1Baseball rankings at No. 23 on March 30, the Knights moved up 11 spots to No. 12 the following week in the D1Baseball rankings. After being ranked No. 21 four weeks ago, the Knights are currently just outside of the top 25 this week and receiving votes for the NCBWA Top 25 Poll. UCF claimed its first ranked vs. ranked series at WVU since May 18-20, 2017, with No. 29 UCF took two of three from No. 23 South Florida in American Conference action. It also marked the Black and Gold’s first series victory over a ranked foe since April 17-19, 2025, when it took two of three from No. 15 TCU at John Euliano Park.
Williamson Tabbed Perfect Game National Player of the Week
After his big series at WVU April 3-5, junior outfielder Andrew Williamson was named the Perfect Game College Baseball National Player of the Week. Williamson helped lead the Knights to a big series win at No. 11 WVU by hitting .600 for the series with three home runs, a double, six runs scored and three RBIs. He also drew five walks and posted a stellar 2.333 OPS with a 1.600 slugging percentage and a .733 on-base clip.
He posted his first two-homer game since his freshman season by going 3-for-4 with three runs scored a pair of home runs in a 5-0 victory on Friday. After going 1-for-3 with three walks and a run scored on Saturday, he capped the impressive weekend by going 2-for-3 with a home run, two walks and two runs scored in a 5-1 victory on Sunday to help the Black and Gold capture the pivotal conference series.
Cardiac Knights
With Sunday, March 29’s walk-off win over Arizona, the Knights pulled out four walk-off victories all on Sundays over a five-week span. The Knights started the stretch with a 2-1 walk-off win over in-state foe South Florida in the series finale on March 1. With the game all deadlocked at 2-1 heading into the last of the ninth, UCF quickly loaded the bases with nobody out. Zak Skinner then worked a full count with the bases loaded and came through with a sharp single through the right side of the infield to give the Knights the walk-off 2-1 victory.
Trailing 9-4 entering the bottom of the ninth against Murray State on Sunday March 8, the Knights put together a last-inning rally for the ages by scoring six runs to record their second walk-off win of the streak. UCF again quickly loaded the bases with nobody out. Javier Crespo started the scoring with an RBI single, and John Smith III came in to score on a wild pitch. James Hankerson Jr. then made it a 9-8 score with a two-run pinch hit single and Jordan Lodise evened the score with a safety squeeze. After a sac bunt moved the winning run to third base with only one out, Cayden Gaskin delivered a walk-off pinch-hit RBI single to left center to complete the epic comeback.
UCF kept the Sunday walk-off streak alive with by pulling out a 6-5 walk-off win over Oklahoma State on Sunday, March 15, to record its first Big 12 series sweep since joining the conference prior to the 2024 season. After OK State tied things up in the top of the ninth, the Black and Gold offense didn’t waste any time rallying as Landon Moran quickly reached with a sharp leadoff single into right field. DeAmez Ross then dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move him into scoring position and James Hankerson Jr. plated Moran with a walk-off RBI single through the right side of the infield on the first pitch of the at-bat.
The Knights then pulled out their fourth Sunday walk-off win on Sunday, March 29, with a 3-2 13-inning victory. All tied at 2-2 since the eighth inning, Cayden Gaskin doubled into the leftfield corner with one away. Following an intentional walk to John Smith III, the Knights then called upon freshman Stephen Chucka to pinch hit. The hometown kid delivered the game-winning hit with a walk-off RBI single through the right side of the infield to bring in Gaskin and complete the sweep over the 2025 College World Series Wildcats.
On Deck
UCF will next begin its 2026 postseason with a trip to Surprise, Arizona, for the Big 12 Baseball Tournament Presented by Allstate next week. The single-elimination tournament will run May 19-23 at Surprise Stadium, the Spring Training home of both the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers. Two years ago, UCF made a deep run at the 2024 Big 12 Tournament by reaching the semifinals.
