The No. 21 ranked UCF Knights Softball team’s 2021 schedule has a few firsts, including, for the first time ever in the regular season, a home-and-home series against No. 7 Florida, and also for the first time ever, No. 3 Arizona comes to Orlando to play the Knights at the UCF Softball Complex on March 8.

It marks the second consecutive season UCF will host a Pac-12 program, and third time ever, as the Knights hosted No. 1 Washington in 2020 and Utah in 2016.

Photo by Jacob Funk/J and L Photography/Getty Images

The Wildcats are one of the most decorated programs in College Softball under Head Coach Mike Candrea, who won eight national titles since being at Arizona in 1986, and is the all-time leader in Division I wins with 1,633. This will be the second all-time meeting between UCF and Arizona. The Wilcats won the first meeting back at the Mary Nutter Classic in 2016.

Image Courtesy: UCF Athletics

UCF and Florida will play a home-and-home series in the regular season, with the Gators coming to UCF for the first time since 2018 on March 24th, and the Knights returning the to Gainesville on April 14.

UCF will start on the road on Feb 13-14 at Florida Gulf Coast. UCF’s home opener is scheduled to be February 19th against WAC conference favorite New Mexico State in a three-game series.

Other highlights of the non conference schedule include:

• At No. 19 South Carolina on March 19-20 for a three game series
• At Ole Miss on April 30-May 2.

Knights Start at #21

For the second time in program history, UCF will start the season ranked, as the Knights come in ranked in at No. 21 in the NFCA Poll and No. 25 in the ESPN/USA Softball poll.

The Knights were ranked 17th in the USA Today/NFCA Division 1 and ESPN.com/USA Softball preseason polls back in 2016.

The Knights went 21-5-1 overall in 2020, finishing at #21 in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 Coaches’ Poll.

UCF will open American Athletic Conference play on the weekend of March 26-28, hosting longtime rival Houston. This season the American will go to a 4-game conference series format.

UCF was picked to win the AAC conference in the preseason poll that came out back on January 12th. They will end the regular season with a showdown with the two-time defending regular season champion South Florida May 7-9.

The American Conference Championship is scheduled for May 13-15 at Tulsa.