TEMPE – Looking to continue riding momentum created from Tuesday afternoon’s non-conference win over UTEP, Sun Devil Softball will step back into Big 12 Conference play this weekend when No. 23/RV Arizona State welcomes No. 25/22 UCF to Tempe for a three-game series slated to begin at 6 p.m. MST on Friday, April 10.
Series schedule
- Friday, April 10 – vs. UCF, 6 p.m. MST (ESPN+) Get tickets
- Saturday, April 11 – vs. UCF, 4 p.m. MST (ESPN+) Get tickets
- Sunday, April 12 – vs. UCF, 12 p.m. MST (ESPN+) Get tickets
Television
- Alex Coil (play-by-play) and Kelly Burke (analyst) will serve as the broadcast team for Friday and Sunday’s broadcasts, while Erica Beach (analyst) will step in for Kelly for Saturday’s broadcast.
The opposition
- Friday’s game will mark the first time UCF has played a softball game against Arizona State in Tempe since Feb. 6, 2009, when the Sun Devils won, 10-7, behind 3-RBI performances from Kaylyn Castillo and Christina Zambrana.
- With a win on Friday, Arizona State will have won back-to-back games over UCF for the second time in the series history.
- The Sun Devils won, 6-0, on March 18, 2023, at the Oklahoma State Mizuno Classic in Stillwater, Okla., before winning last season’s series-opening contest, 3-0, on March 14 in Orlando.
- Arizona State dropped the middle game, 3-0, before winning the series finale, 11-0, in six innings.
- Arizona State will enter Friday’s contest with a 4-2 all-time record against UCF, dating back to the first-ever meeting between the two during the 2009 season.
- The Sun Devils won, 6-0, on March 18, 2023, at the Oklahoma State Mizuno Classic in Stillwater, Okla., before winning last season’s series-opening contest, 3-0, on March 14 in Orlando.
Leading off
- Arizona State’s softball media relations contact, Chris Allen Brown and UCF’s softball media relations contact, Ryan Ladika, who is a Spring 2020 graduate of Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will both be participating in Saturday morning’s “Pat’s Run” presented by TEK Systems.
- The 4.2-mile run is in its 22nd year and is in conjunction with the Pat Tillman Foundation, a non-profit organization named after the Sun Devil For Life, College Football Hall of Famer and Arizona Sports Hall of Famer Pat Tillman, who was named the 1997 Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year to cap a four-year collegiate football career at Arizona State.
- Arizona State will enter Friday evening’s contest having scored 312 runs in 41 games this season.
- The 312 runs scored are the most by a Sun Devil squad since 2022, when Arizona State scored 370.
- Following a five-double performance against UTEP on Tuesday afternoon, Arizona State now has 72 doubles on the season, marking the first time the Sun Devils have had 70-or-more doubles in back-to-back seasons since 2018 (76) and 2019 (98).
- With two more RBI, Katie Chester (48) will turn in the 32nd 50-RBI season in program history.
- Chester will become the first Sun Devil to drive in 50-or-more runs in a single season since Cydney Sanders (63) and Jazmine Hill (54) did so throughout the 2022 campaign.
- Katie Chester (15) and Kaylee Pond (13) have combined for the most home runs by a Sun Devil softball duo (28) since Jordyn VanHook (19) and Yannira Acuna (10) combined to hit 29 during the 2023 season.
- Jazmyn Rollin (10) also hit double-digit home runs during the 2023 campaign, marking the last time three Sun Devils hit 10-or-more home runs in a single season.
- Ashleigh Mejia is two home runs shy of joining Chester and Pond with 10-plus home runs in 2026.
- Jazmyn Rollin (10) also hit double-digit home runs during the 2023 campaign, marking the last time three Sun Devils hit 10-or-more home runs in a single season.
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