Knight Cap: Women’s Tennis and Men’s Golf Selected; Track and Rowing finish regular season

The past week of UCF Knights sports saw two teams get selected for NCAA postseason tournaments and two other teams wrap up their regular seasons. Plus, we name the Knight of the Week for your latest Knight Cap for Thursday, May 5, 2022.

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Women’s Tennis selected for 4th consecutive NCAA Tournament

The No. 21-ranked UCF Women’s Tennis team was selected for the 4th-consecutive time for the NCAA Women’s Tennis Tournament on Monday.

The team will have to travel south for its 1st round matchup for a rematch of its 2019 NCAA Tournament 1st round match: the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The No. 41-ranked Crimson Tide finished their season 15-11 and include the No. 66-ranked Loudmilla Bencheikh and No. 68-ranked Petra Sedlackova. Sedlackova is also part of the No. 52-ranked doubles pair, alongside Anna Parkhomenko.

Both the Knights and Tide are at an even 2-2 all-time against each other.

The match between the Knights and Crimson Tide will begin at 10 a.m. on Friday.

Should the Knights win, they would take on the winner of No. 9-seed Miami (FL) and Stetson at 1 p.m. on Saturday. UCF is 1-1 in previous NCAA Tournament bouts with the Hurricanes and 2-10 overall. On the other hand, the Knights are at an even 27-27 all-time against Stetson.

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Men’s Golf selected to 1st regional since 2018

The UCF Men’s Golf team was selected to its first NCAA Regional Tournament as a team since 2018 Wednesday.

The No. 68-ranked Knights will be the No. 11 seed in the New Haven Regional Tournament, hosted by Yale, on May 16-18.

Competing alongside the Knights will be North Carolina, Texas Tech, Wake Forest, Illinois, NC State, Charlotte, North Florida, Georgia Southern, Mississippi State, Virginia, Seton Hall, Yale, and Sacred Heart. This will be the 6th time UCF and North Florida will have played in the same tournament this season, but the first since the Knights beat the Ospreys by two strokes last month in Augusta, Georgia.

The team is coming off an AAC Conference Tournament in which the team took a 4th-place finish and had three golfers in the individual Top 10. Two of those golfers, Johnny Travale and Teddy Tetak, were unanimously selected to the All-Conference team.

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Baseball prevails over North Florida

The UCF Baseball team held on for the win against North Florida, 8-5, on Tuesday to take the season-long series, 3-2.

The Knights jumped out to a 7-1 lead after six innings thanks to home runs from 1B Ben McCabe, 2B Tom Josten, and DH Andrew Sundean. Josten contributed a second time to the run total with an RBI double.

By the end of the 6th inning, starting pitcher Cameron Crain and reliever Jacob Marlowe already limited the Ospreys to just one run. Crain even kept all 13 batters he faced hitless.

However, North Florida was able to mount a four-run rally in the 8th inning to shrink the Knights’ lead down to two runs (7-5).

SS Noah Orlando gave UCF some breathing room in the 9th thanks to his 4th hit of the game bringing CF Gephry Pena home for an RBI single.

William Saxton was then brought in to close the game, earning his 2nd save of the season.

Now, the team prepares to travel to Tampa for the second War on I-4 series of the season. Game 1 begins at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Game 2 at 2 p.m. on Saturday, and Game 3 at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

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Track and Field finishes off regular season

The UCF Track and Field team competed in its final regular-season meet last weekend in Jacksonville, Florida, hosted by North Florida.

The team returned to Orlando with a quartet of podium finishes and plenty more personal records broken. For the full results from the meet, check out UCF Athletics’ Day One and Day Two recaps.

As for highlights from this weekend:

- Jasmine Scott-Kilgo took the bronze with a 6.10-meter (20 ft. 0.35 in.) best jump in the Long Jump.

- Asherah Collins also bronze with a 12.61-meter (41 ft. 4.25 in.) best jump in the Triple Jump. She led the pack as four Knights athletes placed in the Top 7.

- Adrienne Adams picked up a silver medal in the Discus Throw with a 53.53-meter (175 ft. 7 in.) best throw. It’s Adams’ 3rd podium finish in the event this season

- Rayniah Jones ran her fastest time in the 100-meter hurdles this season with a 12.79-second time, 0.06 seconds off of her personal best. It was enough to get her a silver medal, finishing 0.11 seconds behind 2020 Olympian Brittany Anderson of Jamaica.

Jones also finished 7th in the 100-meter dash with an 11.33-second time, 0.04 seconds off of her personal best.

Both Jones and Adams were honored with Tack and Field Athletes of the Week respectively by the AAC, making it the 2nd consecutive week that two Knights athletes claimed the honors.

Now, the Knights have two weeks off to train for the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championship, held in Wichita, Kansas from May 13-14.

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Rowing wraps up regular reason in Iowa

The UCF Rowing Team concluded its regular season last weekend at Iowa’s Coralville Reservoir.

The Knights’ lone win came in the Invite’s final race, as the Third Varsity Eight boat, coxswained by Sofia Soria got a victory over Minnesota.

For the full results of the Iowa Invite, check out UCF Athletics’ Results PDF or Recap.

Now, the team prepares for the American Athletic Conference Rowing Championship, hosted in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on May 15.

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Knight of the Week:

Marie Mattel, Women’s Tennis

Per an NCAA.com press release on Tuesday, No. 116-ranked Marie Mattel was selected as an automatic qualifier for the American Athletic Conference for the NCAA Women’s Tennis Singles Championship.

If she plays, it would mark the 3rd-straight season a UCF player has played in the tournament, with Mattel being the 4th such player in program history.

Mattel is currently entering the team tournament with a 13-5 singles-play record, as well as a 2-2 record against nationally ranked opponents.

The tournament is scheduled for May 23-28 in Champaign, Illinois, after the conclusion of the team championship.

Mattel was also unanimously selected to the AAC’s All-Conference team. She was joined by her main doubles partner, Evgeniya Levashova.