Ohio State and UCF Meet Tuesday Night In Orlando
3/15/2022 6:42:39 AM | Softball
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State softball team continues its Spring Break schedule on Tuesday when it makes the 84-mile drive north to Orlando, Fla. for a Tuesday evening contest against Central Florida. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m. and the game will be streamed live on ESPN+.
The Basics
Ohio State at Central Florida / Tuesday, March 15 / 6 p.m. / UCF Softball Complex
Watch Live: ESPN+ / Live Stats / Twitter Updates
Briefly on the Buckeyes
- With four wins last weekend in Tampa, Ohio State is now 13-3 on the season and enters Wednesday’s game on a five-game winning streak.
- The Buckeyes’ pitching staff has the Big Ten’s third-best overall team ERA at 1.61. Sophomores Emily Ruck and Allison Smith, along with graduate student Lexie Handley, have pitched 108.0 of Ohio State’s 109.0 total innings.
- Ruck is 3-0 with a 1.19 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 17.2 innings and is coming off a five-inning no-hitter on Sunday versus UMass.
- Handley leads the team in wins (six), appearances (12), innings (61.0), strikeouts (73) and complete games (six).
- On Sunday night, she matched a season-high with 13 strikeouts in a 5-0 win over No. 22 South Florida.
- The Buckeyes are hitting .290 as a team with senior Jaycee Ruberti leading the way with a .378 average.
- Senior Meggie Otte has driven in a team-high 18 runs, followed closely by Niki Carver (12) and Sam Hackenbracht (11).
- Carver has homered in three consecutive games and leads the team with a .632 slugging percentage.
History With Central Florida
- Tuesday will be just the fourth all-time meeting between Ohio State and UCF. The last occurred in 2019.
- The Buckeyes’ win in the series came in 2017, an 8-0 five-inning game in Orlando. Lilli Piper hit a fourth-inning grand slam to break the game open.
About the Pitchers
- In three of Ohio State’s four weekends this season, its secured wins from three different pitchers.
- The Buckeyes’ staff enter Tuesday’s game on a 21-inning scoreless streak that began last Friday against Stony Brook.
- Emily Ruck’s five-inning no-hitter on Sunday vs. UMass was Ohio State’s first since April 26, 2019 (by Morgan Ray) and its 19th since 1997.
- Lexie Handley went 2-0 last weekend with two complete games, a 1.50 earned-run average and 16 strikeouts in 14.0 innings.
- In Allison Smith’s appearance last weekend, she pitched four scoreless innings vs. Army and struck out five while scattering three hits.
- The final four-game weekend numbers for the three-person staff: 24.0 innings, 0.88 earned-run average, 32 strikeouts and three complete game shutouts.
This and That
- Ohio State is off to its best 16-game start since it was 14-2 to begin the 2018 season.
- The Buckeyes’ .812 winning percentage is the best in the Big Ten.
- Ohio State is fifth in the Big Ten in overall team batting and third in team ERA. Only two other teams rank in the top five in both those categories.
- Dating back to the final two weeks of the 2021 season, Ohio State has won 19 of its last 24 games.
- Ohio State batters had 13 extra-base hits last week, including seven doubles and five home runs.
- Niki Carver had the best slugging percentage of anyone with nine or more at-bats (1.444), followed by McKenzie Bump, who started the final three games of the weekend and went 5-for-9 with two doubles, six runs scored and a .778 slugging percentage.
- Sixteen of Ohio State’s 28 RBI last weekend came with two outs. As a team, the Buckeyes hit .421 with two outs.
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