Twenty Home Games Highlight 2017 Kentucky Softball Schedule
** Please note the game vs. Marshall has been moved from April 10 to April 11 at John Cropp Stadium. It is still a 6 p.m. ET start time. **
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky softball
team will play 28 games against NCAA Tournament teams from 2016, and will also
play 13 games against Super Regional contenders from a year ago. In addition,
the Wildcats will play five games against teams that qualified for the Women’s
College World Series, it was announced on Thursday as the Wildcats unveiled
their 2017 schedule.
The 2017 slate opens in Orlando, Florida at
the University of Central Florida Knights Invitational, where Kentucky will
play five games over three days beginning on Feb. 10. The Wildcats will use the
UCF Invitational as the first of four non-conference tournaments to start the
year, with the first 18 games of the season for UK coming on the road.
In Orlando, UK will open the season with
Florida A&M, a matchup of two NCAA Tournament teams from a year ago. Also
in Orlando, UK will face A&M one more time, Pittsburgh twice and host UCF
once.
The second weekend sees the Wildcats make the
trip out west to Cathedral City, California to participate in the Mary Nutter
Classic just outside of Palm Springs. The Wildcats will face their stiffest
non-conference test the weekend of Feb. 15-18, facing Women’s College World Series
participant UCLA, Super Regional participant Oregon, Cal State Northridge and
UC-Davis.
UK will head back to the Sunshine State from
Feb. 24-26 for a five- game tournament in Boca Raton, Florida to compete in the
Florida Atlantic Invitational. The Wildcats will face UConn, Florida A&M,
and Memphis twice over the three-day event. Host FAU made the Gainesville
Regional of the 2016 NCAA Softball Tournament a season ago.
The Coach B Classic will be the next
non-conference stop along the way for Kentucky in Carbondale, Illinois with UK
facing three Illinois-based schools from March 3-4. UK starts the tournament
with a game against Northern Illinois on March 3 before a game against Southern
Illinois as part of a doubleheader. The tournament wraps up the next day for
the Wildcats against UIC.
The home opener will come on March 9 as John
Cropp Stadium will host a tournament in the bluegrass March 9-12. The opening
game of the six-game tournament for UK will be against Kent State at 6 p.m. ET
on March 9. The Wildcats will face the Golden Flashes, Evansville, Drexel and
Women’s College World Series participant, Michigan.
The Wildcats’ Southeastern Conference season
gets underway on March 18 as UK will visit another WCWS team from 2016,
Georgia. Kentucky will play a three-game series against the Bulldogs in Athens
starting on Saturday, March 18 and concluding on Monday, March 20.
The Wildcats will play eight SEC series with
the Georgia series coming on the road in addition to trips to Ole Miss (Oxford,
Mississippi, March 31-April 2), Missouri (Columbia, Missouri, April 21-23) and
Mississippi State (Starkville, Mississippi, May 5-7).
At John Cropp Stadium, Kentucky will host
Arkansas (March 24-26), regional finalist Tennessee (April 7-9), Super Regional
participant Florida (April 14-16) and regional finalist Texas A&M (April
28-30).
Tennessee will host the 2017 SEC Softball
Tournament at Lee Stadium in Knoxville from May 10-13. The SEC Network and ESPN
family of networks will combine to telecast all games of the tournament.
The NCAA Selection Show will be Sunday, May 14
before the NCAA Regionals begin May 18-21 at selected host sites. The top-16
seeded teams will have the opportunity to host the regional round of the NCAA
Tournament.
The 2017 Women’s College World Series will
return to Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma May 31-June 6. ESPN
and ESPN2 will combine to televise all games of the softball championship in
addition to all games being available on ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app.
For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
