Knight Cap: Tennis Splits Weekend

The past week of UCF Knights sports saw one team get its two teams split their weekends and an alumnus having a memorable start to his final professional season Plus, we name the Knights of the Week and have a special interview in store for your latest Knight Cap for Wednesday, March 8, 2022.

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Women’s Tennis goes 2-1 on weekend

While the No. 32-ranked UCF Women’s Tennis team prevailed against Eastern Michigan on Thursday, 6-1, and against No. 18-ranked Michigan on Saturday, 4-3, but was swept by No. 5-ranked Texas, 4-0.

It was true freshman Sophia Biolay that clinched the deciding point for the Knights against Michigan with her 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over her Wolverine counterpart, Julia Fliegner. It was the team’s second win against a ranked team this season.

Now sporting a 7-6 record overall, 2-4 against ranked teams, the Knights continue their homestand this week with three more matches: No. 60-ranked BYU at 5 p.m. Thursday, Harvard at 5 p.m. Friday, and No. 7-ranked Oklahoma State at noon on Sunday.

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Men’s Tennis split weekend

While the UCF Men’s Tennis team got its second win in a row against Florida Gulf Coast, 6-1, No. 18 Michigan swept the team, 7-0, handing it another loss to a ranked team.

The only Knights to get a win in both matches were the No. 30-ranked doubles pair of juniors Lleyton Cronje and Bogdan Pavel, who won 6-2 against their FGCU counterparts and 7-5 against their Michigan counterparts.

While its record falls to 3-9, the team’s March homestand at the USTA National Campus continues with two matches on Friday. First, the team plays North Florida at 11 a.m., followed by a 5 p.m. match against Stetson.

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Women’s Golf competes in Lady Gator Invitational

The UCF Women’s Golf team took home a Top 10 team finish at the Lady Gator Invitational this week.

The team took home 8th place after finishing with a team score of 871 (+31), finishing 20 strokes behind co-winners Florida and Michigan (+11).

Graduate student Ana Laura Collado led the team individually, finishing with a 218 (+8) for the tournament, putting her in a tie for 22nd place. Senior Alyssa Lamoureux and junior Tunrada Piddon were not far behind, both finishing in a tie for 33rd with a score of 219 (+9).

Check out Golfstat.com for the full results of the Lady Gator Invitational.

The team will have a week off before returning to action on March 14-15 for the Briar’s Creek Invitational in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

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Aric Almirola gets third Top 10 of season in Vegas

UCF alum Aric Almirola captured his third Top 10 finish in three races in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Amidst his final full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series, Almirola is the only driver to finish every race so far this season in the Top 10.

He followed up his 5th-place Daytona 500 finish by taking 6th at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California the following weekend.

Almirola will attempt to keep his Top 10 streak alive in the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford this weekend at Phoenix Raceway on March 13 at 3:30 p.m. on FOX.

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Knight of the Week

Jada Cody, Softball

As Eric Lopez explained in his Softball weekend recap, sophomore Jada Cody had what he called “the greatest weekend any UCF hitter has ever had” throughout five games between South Carolina and Florida Gulf Coast this weekend.

Backing up his claim is the fact that Cody’s 14 RBIs account for 51 percent of the Knights’ total amount of runs for the weekend.

Nine of those 14 RBIs came on Saturday alone, with four coming against South Carolina and the other five against FGCUl, which tied a career high for RBIs in one game.

Now, her performance was enough to propel her to 2nd in the country in RBIs (30 total for the season) as she and the team travel for seven games out west in California.