ORLANDO — The No. 21 UCF softball team staged a late comeback bid, but the squad fell to the Arizona State Sun Devils, 7-4, in the teams’ Sunday series finale at the UCF Softball Complex.
Despite the loss, the Knights remain nine games north of .500 overall, at 20-11-1 through 32 games, and enter their third Big 12 Conference series Thursday at 3-3 in league play.
Freshman right-hander Yessenia Lopez was tabbed for the Sunday start by head coach Cindy Ball-Malone, and began her afternoon with a pair of scoreless frames with just a single hit allowed.
A pair of UCF errors in the third stanza allowed the Sun Devils (21-8, 4-2 Big 12) to crack the scoreboard first, and Arizona State would later add six more scores between the fourth and fifth innings.
The Knights drew up a response in the home half of the fifth against senior Kenzie Brown (10-1), who in the series-opener Friday threw a seven-inning complete game shutout. After Samantha Rey and Ashleigh Griffin both reached with one out on a single and hit-by-pitch, respectively, a double-steal forced an ASU error that allowed Rey to cross home plate with UCF’s first run.
A wild pitch later scored Griffin, and junior shortstop Aubrey Evans drove in two more with a single through the left side to cut the Black and Gold’s deficit to three.
Evans hit safely in both of UCF’s final two games in the series, and Sunday recorded her third multi-RBI game of the spring.
Ball-Malone called upon senior right-hander Kaitlyn Felton to hold the deficit at three, and Felton responded with two innings of one-hit ball to finish her weekend with a 2.33 ERA in a team-leading nine innings of work.
UCF was unable to muster more against Brown, though, as it was held scoreless in both the final two frames.
On Friday, Felton (9-1) turned in her sixth outing of seven innings this spring, but the Knights fell to Arizona State, 3-0, in their Big 12 home-opener.
The Sun Devils broke a scoreless tie in the fifth on a three-run home run by Ashleigh Mejia.
The Knights were unable to solve Brown, a senior who entered the evening ranking among Big 12 leaders in strikeouts per seven innings (11.9, 1st), fewest hits allowed per seven innings (3.58, 1st), strikeouts (96, 2nd) and ERA (1.11, 4th).
Stormy Kotzelnick notched her eighth multi-hit game of the season, and catcher Beth Damon recorded UCF’s third hit of the night in the bottom of the seventh.
The Knights had forced a rubber-match on Saturday as Damon, along with the rest of the team, ensured the squad’s brief three-game skid would not hit four, routing the Sun Devils, 11-0 in six innings.
They did it on the back of Damon’s first career two-homer day and redshirt freshman Isabella Vega’s dominant six-inning, two-hit shutout, an effort that lowered her season era to a glistening 1.21 through her first 46.1 innings this spring.
After Vega dispatched of the Sun Devils in order in the top of the frame, the Knights sent all nine hitters to the plate in the bottom half, beginning with Madison Simon’s leadoff walk.
A Kotzelnick single and Izzy Mertes walk then loaded the bases for Damon, who recorded the first of her seven RBI with a groundout to second base.
Kendall Yarnell and Griffin then followed with consecutive run-scoring singles, pushing UCF’s lead to four prior to the conclusion of the contest’s first inning.
The Knights offense broke through once again in the fifth when Mertes drew her second free pass of the afternoon ahead of Damon, who launched the first pitch she saw over the center field batter’s eye for her third home run of the season to extend UCF’s edge to 6-0.
The hosts then opened the sixth with singles from Rey, Simon and Evans, the last of which pushed across the team’s seventh run, and a Kotzelnick walk loaded the bases for Damon’s eventual run-rule-clinching, game-ending grand slam.
The contest marked Damon’s second career three-hit game, first career multi-home run game, and first career mult-extra-base hit game, and gave the freshman a career-high seven RBI and nine total bases.
Her seven RBI also represent the second-most by a single player in a game in program history, and the most since Knights Hall-of-Famer Stephanie Best plated 11 in the Knights’ 18-2 win over Army March 19, 2003.
Up Next:
The Knights look to bounce back against the Iowa State Cyclones on Thursday (6 p.m.), Friday (6 p.m.) and Saturday (noon) from the UCF Softball Complex. All games will be streamed on ESPN+.
