Upcoming Event: Softball at No. 25 UCF on April 3, 2026 at 4 p.m.
4 p.m.
Softball
at No. 25 UCF
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The University of Utah Athletics
Thursday, April 2
Orlando, Fla.
4 p.m.
University of Utah
at
No. 25 UCF
Players Mentioned
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/ Softball
P
/ Softball
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/ Softball
UTIL
/ Softball
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/ Softball
INF
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INF
/ Softball
OF
/ Softball
Photo by: Margaret Mower/Utah Athletics
Utes Preparing to Visit Knights, Wildcats
4/1/2026 8:15 AM | Softball
Utah to take on another conference challenge before mid-week matchup
SALT LAKE CITY – Two very different road trips are on the horizon for the University of Utah softball team, starting with the longest trek of the season to Orlando, Fla., where the Utes will play three games against the UCF Knights at the UCF Softball Complex, then Utah will make the short trip to Ogden, Utah for a mid-week battle with the Weber State Wildcats at Wildcat Softball Field.
The Utes and the Knights will meet for the first time on Thursday for a matchup beginning at 6 p.m. ET (4 p.m. MDT), followed by a 6 p.m. ET rematch on Friday and a 12 p.m. ET finale on Saturday. Utah and Weber State will then square off on Tuesday at 4 p.m. MDT.
April 2 - 7 Schedule
How to Follow
Tune in to ESPN+ to catch all the action live in both Orlando and Ogden.
Last Time Out
A difficult most recent weekend for the Utes was not without its bright spots, one of which was an excellent performance for freshman Cian Noli. In four games last week, Noli recorded multiple hits three times, batted .500, smacked two homers and drive in five runs. Noli has hits in 10 of her last 11 games and during that stretch, she's batted .433 and raised her batting average over 100 points.
One Ute hit a milestone during the team's most recent series, as Mia Gomez broke the program record for consecutive games reaching base safely. Her streak currently stands at 36, the longest in the nation for any freshman and she continues to craft one of the most impressive rookie seasons in the Big 12. Her .439 average, .512 on-base percentage and 47 hits all have her in the top 10 in the conference.
Scouting the Opposition
UCF spent last weekend hammering the Houston Cougars in Houston, outscoring their hosts 49-9 in a three-game sweep. They finished the series with an exclamation point in the form of an 11-run seventh inning in a 22-8 victory. That showing helped boost the Knights' batting average for the season up to .328, which ranks fourth in the Big 12. They also have been one of the league's most patient teams, drawing 155 walks, which is third behind Utah and Texas Tech.
On the conference's home run leaderboard, three Knights are bunched up in the top 15, led by sophomore Beth Damon and her 11 round-trippers. Right behind Damon are teammates Kendall Yarnell and Izzy Mertes, who've both gone yard 10 times. Mertes' 40 RBIs place her sixth in the league, while Damon is tied for ninth and Yarnell owns a top 10 spot in slugging percentage thanks to an .857 clip.
The Knights' pitching staff has also been excellent so far in 2026, as evidenced by a 2.65 ERA that is the conference's third-best. Hildie Dempsey's 1.88 ERA ranks fifth among Big 12 hurlers, one spot above UCF's leader in innings pitched, Isabella Vega, who's pitched to a 1.97 mark. Vega, who was a 2025 Freshman All-American, got the win in all three games against the Cougars, and on Saturday, she fired the fourth perfect game in program history, retiring all 15 batters she faced in an 11-0 win.
Utah and Weber State will be meeting for the third time, with the Utes going for the clean sweep of the Wildcats after scoring victories in each of the first two meetings between the squads in 2026. In those Utah victories, seven different players have combined for eight total home runs, including two from Gomez on Feb. 26. One of the players trying to help the Wildcats get into the win column will be sophomore outfielder Jordan McMahon, who, at .422, owns one of the highest batting averages in the Big Sky.
2026 Team Stat Leaders (As of 4/1/2026)
Batting Avg. Mia Gomez .440
Slugging % Mia Gomez .752
On Base % Mia Gomez .519
Runs Scored Danika Wilson 33
Hits Mia Gomez 48
RBI Mia Gomez 33
Doubles Kennedy Proctor 12
Home Runs Mia Gomez 8
Stolen Bases Sianni Sakai 5
ERA Shelbee Jones 1.56 (72.0 IP)
K's Shelbee Jones 70
Wins Shelbee Jones 9
National and Conference Rankings – Team
National and Conference Rankings - Individual
On-Base Honors
With her seventh-inning single against Oklahoma State on March 27, Mia Gomez became the program's new record holder for consecutive games reaching base safely with 34. She's since extended that streak to 36 games and she remains the only freshman in the country to reach base safely in every game her team has played in 2026.
Gomez is not the only Ute with a lengthy on-base streak however. Fellow rookie Danika Wilson has gotten on base in 20 consecutive contests. Utah is the only program in the country to have two freshman with on-base streaks of at least 20 games.
Multi-Hit Games for Mia
Mia Gomez's impressive freshman season includes five games in which she's had at least three hits. No Utah player in 2025 had more than four games with three or more hits.
Leadoff Leaders
When leading off an inning, the Utes have done an excellent job getting on base. Utah's lead-off hitters have crafted a .448 on-base percentage. Their led by Gomez in that statistic, who has gotten on safely 18 times in 27 tries.
POTW Awards
The Utes have been piling up weekly awards of late, the most recent being Danika Wilson's second Freshman of the Week honor, which was announced on Tuesday. Wilson is the first Ute to win two freshman of the week awards since Abby Dayton in 2023. Shelbee Jones was the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week last week. On March 10, Mia Gomez was named Softball on SI's Freshman of the Week and Wilson took home her first Big 12 Freshman of the Week award on March 2. Gomez won Utah's first weekly honor of the season on Feb. 17, when she was named Big 12 Freshman of the Week.
Jones Tosses a No-Hitter
On March 11, Shelbee Jones fired the 32nd no-hitter in program history, blanking Abilene Christian over five innings in a 13-0 Utah win. She retired the side in order in each of the first three frames and struck out the side in the second. A two-out walk in the fourth inning was the only baserunner the Wildcats would manage before Jones closed the afternoon in style. She added two more punchouts to her total in the fifth, including one for the final out, her ninth of the day.
How Sweep It Is
Utah's thrashing of Arizona State represented the program's first road sweep of a ranked team since they took three from No. 13 Oregon in 2023. Utah's 35 runs in three games was their highest total in a series of three games or less since 1996 and it included their largest win over a ranked team ever in the form of a 15-0 rout on Saturday.
Proctor Power
Kennedy Proctor started March quite the power display, homering in three straight games on March 1, March 4 and March 6, all in Utah wins. Proctor is the first Utah player to go deep in three straight games since Ellessa Bonstrom in 2023.
Lighting Up the Thunderbirds
Against Southern Utah, the Utes cracked five homers, their most in a single game since 2020 and the 18 runs they scored were Utah's most in a single game since they also scored 18 in a 2012 win over North Dakota.
Multi-Homer Games
Shonty Passi's two-homer game on March 7 was the fourth multi-homer game by a Utah player in 2026. That's Utah's highest total of multi-homer games in one season since 2011.
Late Inning Lightning
Utah's bats have been at their best late in games. In the sixth and seventh innings, the Utes have outscored their opponents by a combined margin of 28-5.
Double Dare
Kennedy Proctor added her name to the school record book on Feb. 14, when she clocked three doubles at the expense of Illinois State. She was the sixth player in Utah history to log a performance like that and the first since Kelly Martinez in 2018.
Hailey Hurls a Gem
Hailey Maestretti put forth perhaps the best performance of her collegiate career against Santa Clara on Feb. 13. She allowed only two hits, didn't walk a batter, struck out six and faced just three batters over the minimum. The sophomore southpaw retired the first six batters she faced, then used a pair of strikeouts to work around a lead-off single in the first. Maestretti induced a double play ball to help her get out of the fourth, worked a perfect fifth, then stranded runners in the final two stanzas and fired back-to-back punchouts in the seventh to complete her masterpiece.
Triple Threat
In Utah's first game of 2026, Hailee White stenciled her name into the program record book. With two triples against UC Riverside, White became the 12th player in school history to record two three-baggers in one game and the first since Abby Dayton in 2024.
FOLLOW THE UTES!
Fans can follow along on social media (Twitter |Instagram: @utahsoftball | Facebook: Facebook.com/Utessoftball).
The Utes and the Knights will meet for the first time on Thursday for a matchup beginning at 6 p.m. ET (4 p.m. MDT), followed by a 6 p.m. ET rematch on Friday and a 12 p.m. ET finale on Saturday. Utah and Weber State will then square off on Tuesday at 4 p.m. MDT.
April 2 - 7 Schedule
| Date | Game | Watch/Live Stats |
| April 2 | Utah at UCF | Watch / Live Stats |
| April 3 | Utah at UCF | Watch / Live Stats |
| April 4 | Utah at UCF | Watch / Live Stats |
| April 7 | Utah at Weber State | Watch / Live Stats |
How to Follow
Tune in to ESPN+ to catch all the action live in both Orlando and Ogden.
Last Time Out
A difficult most recent weekend for the Utes was not without its bright spots, one of which was an excellent performance for freshman Cian Noli. In four games last week, Noli recorded multiple hits three times, batted .500, smacked two homers and drive in five runs. Noli has hits in 10 of her last 11 games and during that stretch, she's batted .433 and raised her batting average over 100 points.
One Ute hit a milestone during the team's most recent series, as Mia Gomez broke the program record for consecutive games reaching base safely. Her streak currently stands at 36, the longest in the nation for any freshman and she continues to craft one of the most impressive rookie seasons in the Big 12. Her .439 average, .512 on-base percentage and 47 hits all have her in the top 10 in the conference.
Scouting the Opposition
UCF spent last weekend hammering the Houston Cougars in Houston, outscoring their hosts 49-9 in a three-game sweep. They finished the series with an exclamation point in the form of an 11-run seventh inning in a 22-8 victory. That showing helped boost the Knights' batting average for the season up to .328, which ranks fourth in the Big 12. They also have been one of the league's most patient teams, drawing 155 walks, which is third behind Utah and Texas Tech.
On the conference's home run leaderboard, three Knights are bunched up in the top 15, led by sophomore Beth Damon and her 11 round-trippers. Right behind Damon are teammates Kendall Yarnell and Izzy Mertes, who've both gone yard 10 times. Mertes' 40 RBIs place her sixth in the league, while Damon is tied for ninth and Yarnell owns a top 10 spot in slugging percentage thanks to an .857 clip.
The Knights' pitching staff has also been excellent so far in 2026, as evidenced by a 2.65 ERA that is the conference's third-best. Hildie Dempsey's 1.88 ERA ranks fifth among Big 12 hurlers, one spot above UCF's leader in innings pitched, Isabella Vega, who's pitched to a 1.97 mark. Vega, who was a 2025 Freshman All-American, got the win in all three games against the Cougars, and on Saturday, she fired the fourth perfect game in program history, retiring all 15 batters she faced in an 11-0 win.
Utah and Weber State will be meeting for the third time, with the Utes going for the clean sweep of the Wildcats after scoring victories in each of the first two meetings between the squads in 2026. In those Utah victories, seven different players have combined for eight total home runs, including two from Gomez on Feb. 26. One of the players trying to help the Wildcats get into the win column will be sophomore outfielder Jordan McMahon, who, at .422, owns one of the highest batting averages in the Big Sky.
2026 Team Stat Leaders (As of 4/1/2026)
Batting Avg. Mia Gomez .440
Slugging % Mia Gomez .752
On Base % Mia Gomez .519
Runs Scored Danika Wilson 33
Hits Mia Gomez 48
RBI Mia Gomez 33
Doubles Kennedy Proctor 12
Home Runs Mia Gomez 8
Stolen Bases Sianni Sakai 5
ERA Shelbee Jones 1.56 (72.0 IP)
K's Shelbee Jones 70
Wins Shelbee Jones 9
National and Conference Rankings – Team
- Utah can lay claim to the second-best ERA in the country and the 12th-best mark nationally at 2.32. Utah's 11 shutouts ranks eighth in the country and the squad's 1.25 WHIP puts them 21st.
- The Utes have worked 156 walks in 2026, second-best in the Big 12 and 15th in the country. Utah also has racked up 225 RBIs, 26th in Division I and the team's total of 247 runs puts them 28th.
- In the field, the Utes have turned 17 double plays third-most in the conference and 21st in the nation.
National and Conference Rankings - Individual
- Utah's pitchers continue to occupy space inside Big 12's top 10, with Shelbee Jones' 1.56 ERA placing her second in the league and in the top 20 nationally. Jones also has 70 strikeouts, sixth-best in the league, her eight wins place her in a tie for eighth and she's tied for fourth in shutouts with three.
- One spot ahead of Jones in shutouts is Hailey Maestretti, who has four, tying her for second in the conference and ninth in the country.
- Jones, Maestretti and Raci Miranda all own spots in the top 10 in WHIP, with Jones ranking 10th, Maestretti eighth and Miranda fifth. Miranda also has thrown two shutouts, tying her for ninth in the Big 12.
- Mia Gomez owns top 10 spots in four different statistics, including hits, where her total of 48 places her fourth. She also ranks seventh in doubles with 10, eighth in batting average at .440 and eighth in batting average at .440.
- Kennedy Proctor has moved into third the Big 12 in doubles with 12.
- Shonty Passi has crafted a .517 on-base percentage, which is 10th-best in the league
- Hailee White has piled up 76 assists, seventh-best in the Big 12.
On-Base Honors
With her seventh-inning single against Oklahoma State on March 27, Mia Gomez became the program's new record holder for consecutive games reaching base safely with 34. She's since extended that streak to 36 games and she remains the only freshman in the country to reach base safely in every game her team has played in 2026.
Gomez is not the only Ute with a lengthy on-base streak however. Fellow rookie Danika Wilson has gotten on base in 20 consecutive contests. Utah is the only program in the country to have two freshman with on-base streaks of at least 20 games.
Multi-Hit Games for Mia
Mia Gomez's impressive freshman season includes five games in which she's had at least three hits. No Utah player in 2025 had more than four games with three or more hits.
Leadoff Leaders
When leading off an inning, the Utes have done an excellent job getting on base. Utah's lead-off hitters have crafted a .448 on-base percentage. Their led by Gomez in that statistic, who has gotten on safely 18 times in 27 tries.
POTW Awards
The Utes have been piling up weekly awards of late, the most recent being Danika Wilson's second Freshman of the Week honor, which was announced on Tuesday. Wilson is the first Ute to win two freshman of the week awards since Abby Dayton in 2023. Shelbee Jones was the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week last week. On March 10, Mia Gomez was named Softball on SI's Freshman of the Week and Wilson took home her first Big 12 Freshman of the Week award on March 2. Gomez won Utah's first weekly honor of the season on Feb. 17, when she was named Big 12 Freshman of the Week.
Jones Tosses a No-Hitter
On March 11, Shelbee Jones fired the 32nd no-hitter in program history, blanking Abilene Christian over five innings in a 13-0 Utah win. She retired the side in order in each of the first three frames and struck out the side in the second. A two-out walk in the fourth inning was the only baserunner the Wildcats would manage before Jones closed the afternoon in style. She added two more punchouts to her total in the fifth, including one for the final out, her ninth of the day.
How Sweep It Is
Utah's thrashing of Arizona State represented the program's first road sweep of a ranked team since they took three from No. 13 Oregon in 2023. Utah's 35 runs in three games was their highest total in a series of three games or less since 1996 and it included their largest win over a ranked team ever in the form of a 15-0 rout on Saturday.
Proctor Power
Kennedy Proctor started March quite the power display, homering in three straight games on March 1, March 4 and March 6, all in Utah wins. Proctor is the first Utah player to go deep in three straight games since Ellessa Bonstrom in 2023.
Lighting Up the Thunderbirds
Against Southern Utah, the Utes cracked five homers, their most in a single game since 2020 and the 18 runs they scored were Utah's most in a single game since they also scored 18 in a 2012 win over North Dakota.
Multi-Homer Games
Shonty Passi's two-homer game on March 7 was the fourth multi-homer game by a Utah player in 2026. That's Utah's highest total of multi-homer games in one season since 2011.
Late Inning Lightning
Utah's bats have been at their best late in games. In the sixth and seventh innings, the Utes have outscored their opponents by a combined margin of 28-5.
Double Dare
Kennedy Proctor added her name to the school record book on Feb. 14, when she clocked three doubles at the expense of Illinois State. She was the sixth player in Utah history to log a performance like that and the first since Kelly Martinez in 2018.
Hailey Hurls a Gem
Hailey Maestretti put forth perhaps the best performance of her collegiate career against Santa Clara on Feb. 13. She allowed only two hits, didn't walk a batter, struck out six and faced just three batters over the minimum. The sophomore southpaw retired the first six batters she faced, then used a pair of strikeouts to work around a lead-off single in the first. Maestretti induced a double play ball to help her get out of the fourth, worked a perfect fifth, then stranded runners in the final two stanzas and fired back-to-back punchouts in the seventh to complete her masterpiece.
Triple Threat
In Utah's first game of 2026, Hailee White stenciled her name into the program record book. With two triples against UC Riverside, White became the 12th player in school history to record two three-baggers in one game and the first since Abby Dayton in 2024.
FOLLOW THE UTES!
Fans can follow along on social media (Twitter |Instagram: @utahsoftball | Facebook: Facebook.com/Utessoftball).
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