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University of Central Florida

UCF Athletics
 4000 Central Florida Boulevard Orlando, FL 32816
Division 1 Florida Southeast
Public Very Large National competitor
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Cindy Ball-Malone

Cindy Ball-Malone was named the second head coach in UCF Softball history on June 27, 2018.


Ball, better known by her nickname Bear, joined the Knights in 2019, going 34-21 (11-10), including picking up Power6 wins over Ohio State, Pitt, Penn State and Boston College in her first season as head coach.


In year two in 2020, Bear brought the program to new heights. After leading UCF to a program-best 16-2 start in 2020, including an 11-game winning streak from 02/14-03/01, the Knights were tabbed as high as No. 22 in the ESPN/USA Softball and NFCA/USA Today Top 25 Polls. In the first release of the NCAA RPI, UCF checked in at No. 7 overall.


Coach Bear achieved her milestone 50th win at UCF on 03/01/20 in a 2-0 win over Longwood. In the 26 game, COVID-19 shortened 2020 season, UCF outscored opponents 156-64 and racked up a 9-4-1 record against Power6 teams and a 6-5-1 record against Top 25 teams or teams receiving votes.


Bear once again led the program to new heights in 2021, securing a career-best 41-19-1 record with the Knights and leading the Black and Gold into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016. Bear got her Knights all the way to the AAC Championship game and the Knights' 41 wins were the most wins UCF has posted in a season since 2015.


The Black and Gold also posted three wins over top-five teams in the country, taking down then No. 5 Florida twice (March 24, 8-6 and April 14, 7-0) and No. 2 Arizona (March 8, 2-0). UCF played 14 games against a top-25 opponent in 2021, posting a 4-9-1 record in those games.


The UCF softball program took a massive leap in the 2022 season as the team posted an impressive 49-14 record. In what was the best season in program history, the year included the Black and Gold winning the conference’s regular season and tournament titles as well as earning the right to host NCAA Regionals, being named the No. 16 seed on Selection Sunday. Bear and her squad didn’t stop there as the Knights swept their way through the Orlando Regional, beating Villanova 6-0 on the strength of two Jada Cody home runs before topping No. 24 Michigan twice to advance to the program’s first Super Regional.


The 2022 season began with a bang as UCF, who began the year receiving votes in the NFCA poll, walked-off on No. 12 Georgia on opening night with an eighth inning solo shot from Shannon Doherty. Mid-February saw the Knights take part in the St. Pete/Clearwater Elite Invitational, one of the top tournaments in the sport. UCF picked up a pair of wins against future Big 12 Conference foes, beating No. 11 Texas 15-10 and Texas Tech 7-3. March saw UCF go 7-0 on their California swing, going unbeaten on a west coast trip for the first time in program history. The remainder of the regular season saw the Knights dominate American Athletic Conference play, eventually clinching the outright regular season championship on the final day of the season against Wichita State. UCF walked-off against Houston in the semifinals of The American Championship before run-ruling rival South Florida 11-0 to earn the conference tournament crown. It was the first time since 2015 that the Knights had won both conference titles. The Knights’ magical season came to an end in Norman as UCF were swept in Supers by the eventual national champions, top seeded No. 1 Oklahoma.


The team finished in the top 16 in all four major polls at 2022’s end. The Knights checked in at No. 14 in final edition of the NFCA's rankings, their highest finish in the poll in program history. The Black and Gold finished in a tie of 15th in USA Softball's rankings while checking in at No. 13 in D1Softball's final poll and No. 14 in Softball America. The No. 14 finish in the NFCA poll was one spot shy of tying the program record, set back in week 15 of 2015. The same can be said about the Knights' USA Softball ranking, as UCF finished one spot behind their program best ranking of No. 14 set in week 14 of 2015.


Bear helped guide more than one team to new heights in 2022, as she was named as an assistant coach for the USA National Team at the World Games and Canada Cup in the summer. The team won gold at the World Games.


After leading the Knights to their first Super Regional appearance in program history in 2022, Coach Bear again made history with UCF softball in 2023, leading the team to its third consecutive 40-win season with its 40-21 finish, also marking the first time in program history that the Knights have won at least 40 games in three consecutive seasons. UCF opened the season ranked as high as 15th in the nation, and by season's end had won its second consecutive American Athletic Conference Tournament Championship with a 3-0 showing against Memphis, South Florida and Tulsa.


The automatic NCAA tournament bid clinched by the Knights' tournament title marked the 10th NCAA tournament appearance in program history and third straight dating back to 2021. UCF earned a spot in the NCAA Tallahassee Regional hosted by No. 3 Florida State, along with No. 20 South Carolina and Marist. The Knights opened NCAA Regional play with a 6-1 victory over the Gamecocks May 19, a victory that extended UCF's season-long win streak to 14 consecutive games dating back to the Knights' 13-1 win at Tulsa April 16. The Knights' 2023 season came to an end with losses to the Seminoles and Gamecocks May 20.


During the 2023 season, Coach Bear oversaw the development of RHP/OF Sarah Willis, a junior transfer from the Washington Huskies, who became the second Knight in program history to win American Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year. The Knights also saw three selections to the NFCA's All-Region First (Willis), Second (RHP Grace Jewell) and Third (INF/DP Aubrey Evans) Teams, as well as eight selections to The American's All-Conference First and Second Teams.


The Knights clinched the 800th win in program history during the 2023 season as well, a milestone that accompanied UCF's three-game sweep of the South Florida Bulls April 23. Coach Bear also recorded the 150th win of her UCF career with the Knights' 6-5 win over Mississippi State Feb. 19, and she notched the 250th win of her head coaching career four days later with UCF's 8-0 win over Garnder-Webb Feb. 23.


Following her fifth year with the Knights, Ball-Malone's all-time record at UCF is 185-80-2 (.697), and in her nine-year head coaching career owns a 284-196-2 record (.591). She picked up her 100th win at the helm of the Black and Gold with a 3-0 win over Liberty at home on Feb. 15, 2022.


Ball joined the Knights after four successful seasons at Boise State University. In her last two campaigns, Ball compiled a 73-36 record. She led the squad to the program's first postseason appearance at the 2017 National Invitational Softball Championship and followed it up with a 2018 NCAA Tournament berth.


In 2018, the Broncos set programs records for most wins in a season (40), most conference wins in a season (18), and the first conference title in program history defeating New Mexico in the Mountain West championship.


Ball brings a plethora of coaching experience, including a two-year stint with the Washington staff, to Orlando. In those two seasons, she served as recruiting coordinator and was responsible for the development of the Husky pitching staff. The Huskies went 76-35 during Ball's two seasons in Seattle and reached a pair of NCAA Super Regionals while developing Kaitlin Inglesby into a second team All-American.


Under Ball's leadership, Inglesby held the lowest ERA on the 2012 team for the second straight year (2.31), while also leading the Huskies pitching staff in starts (30), wins (19), saves (5), complete games (21), shutouts (6), and strikeouts (169).

Ball has also spent time coaching at Cal State Northridge, Cosumnes River College, Modesto Junior College, and her alma mater, Pacific.


Ball graduated from Pacific in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in sports sciences and earned her master's in education in 2006. Ball is considered the greatest two-way player in the history of Pacific Softball earning back-to-back All-America honors and holds nine career pitching records for the Tigers.


Ball-Malone currently lives in Oviedo, Fla. with her husband, Robert Malone III. Together, they have four children, three boys named Four, Ryder and Cayson, and a girl named Sawyer.

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Jenn Salling

Jenn Salling, an Olympic medalist and Canadian National Team assistant coach, was named assistant coach for the Knights on July 28, 2022.


Salling was head coach Cindy Ball-Malone's first volunteer assistant coach at UCF, with Ball-Malone beginning her tenure as a Knight on June 27, 2018. Salling came to campus soon after and was on staff from Aug. 2018 – Feb. 2019.


"First and foremost, I want to thank Coach Ball-Malone and the UCF athletic department for the opportunity to be a part of Knight Nation," said Salling. "I especially want to thank Coach Bear for entrusting me with the opportunity to join the UCF softball family, be a part of her staff and build upon the expectations and standards of excellence that it takes to be an NCAA Division I national champion. Her knowledge of the game and passion for human and player development is what I admire most about Coach Bear. She knows how to win, she knows what it takes to win and I wholeheartedly respect and believe in how she goes about the process to winning, both on and off the softball field."


Salling is currently with the Canadian National Team as an assistant coach, as well as serving as an Athletes Unlimited facilitator, the same professional softball team that recent UCF graduate assistant hire Shannon Saile is playing for this summer.


Salling made her debut with the Canadian women's national team as a player in 2006 when she competed in her first of five WBSC Women's Softball World Championships (2006, 2010, 2012, 2016 and 2018). She also represented Canada at the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2020 and four Pan American Games, earning silver medals in 2007, 2011 and 2019 and gold in 2015.


At the 2019 WBSC Americas Olympic Qualifier, Salling hit for a .421 average and led Canada with 11 RBIs as the team booked its ticket to Tokyo 2020. In her second Olympic appearance, Salling led Team Canada with a .571 batting average and hit one homerun as the team won the bronze medal.


Salling began her college playing career in 2007, playing one year for the University of Oregon, batting .481 with 14 home runs. She was one of the top 10 finalists for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and was the only freshman to be named a finalist. She was also named a First-Team All-American that year. Salling transferred to the University of Washington in 2009 where she won a National Championship in her first season with the Huskies. During her three seasons with Washington, Salling was be named Female Athlete of the Year at the WESPYs in her senior year, a Second-Team Lowes Senior CLASS Award All-American, a First Team NFCA/Louisville Slugger All-America in junior and was twice named to the All-Pacific Region and All-Pac-10 Conference Teams.


After exhausting her collegiate eligibility, Salling was selected with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2011 NPF Draft. She spent four seasons in the professional ranks playing for the USSSA Pride (2011, 2012, 2013) and the Pennsylvania Rebellion (2014). She helped the Pride win the NPF Championship in 2013.


Salling stepped away from the professional game for a bit and went on to be an assistant coach at Roosevelt University from 2013-14. From there, she became a graduate assistant manager in her return to Washington, going back for two seasons. She began her first stint as a Knight as a volunteer assistant coach from Aug. 2018-Feb. 2019 before returning to professional softball, where she played for the Canadian Wild from 2019-21.

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Becca Mueller

The UCF softball team has announced the addition of Becca Mueller to its coaching staff as an assistant coach and the program’s recruiting coordinator ahead of the spring 2024 season.


Mueller joins the Knights coaching staff on the heels of three seasons with the California Golden Bears, working primarily with the team’s offense as the Golden Bears’ hitting coach. With her assistance, Cal compiled an 80-68-2 aggregate record throughout the past three seasons, including a 35-21-1 mark and a berth in the NCAA Norman Regional in 2023.


“I just think that what Bear [head coach Cindy Ball-Malone] is doing here is really amazing, and I’ve loved watching the growth of UCF over the years,” Mueller said. “Talking to Bear and the way she’s going with the team and the culture she’s creating, obviously it’s a winning program, but I just love the culture that she brings and the standard that she wants to set for the girls every single day.”


Mueller’s Golden Bears offense produced a .294 team average that ranked 54th in the nation this season, and the squad also hit 81 doubles in its 57 games, a mark that ranked second-most in the Pac-12 and 24th in the country, in addition to setting the program’s single-season doubles record. The team’s .498 slugging percentage ranked third-best in the Pac-12, as well as 24th nationally, and the Golden Bears’ 5.42 runs per game also represented the 38th-best mark in Division I softball.


“You can expect an offense that is well-rounded,” Mueller said of her philosophy. “In this day and age when you bring in a hitting coach, they think of the bombs, it’s just ‘home runs and die,’ which is not really how I am. I like when people are fast and they can drop bunts, but also when they can hit it over the fence. Last year at Cal, we set the doubles record, which I loved because we weren’t ‘home runs and die,’ but we were also second in home runs in school history. We had a really well-rounded offense.”


Prior to joining Cal, she served as an assistant coach at Ball State during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign, overseeing a Cardinals offense that led the MAC and ranked 54th in the country with a .304 team batting average.


Ball State also ranked first in the conference during the abbreviated season in doubles (53), on-base percentage (.405), runs per game (6.19), slugging percentage (.503) and walks (102). The Cardinals’ 53 doubles and 102 walks were good for top-10 ranks nationally, pulling in at third and eighth, respectfully.


Mueller joined Ball State the year after spending the 2019 season as a volunteer assistant coach with Georgia, helping guide the Bulldogs to a 42-19 record and an appearance in the NCAA Minneapolis Regional.


“At her previous institution, her hitters set a couple of records, and nationally had done a really good job against some high-level teams,” said Ball-Malone. “I followed along what she had done over the year with the hitters, and some of the pitchers she had, her hitters knocked out of games, it was really impressive. I’m really impressed with her game preparation and her gameplanning.”


With Georgia, Mueller helped produce a quartet of NFCA All-Southeast Region selections, including one NFCA Third Team All-American. The Bulldog offense as a whole ranked within the top six programs in the SEC in runs per game (6.03, 3rd), slugging percentage (.508, 3rd), home runs per game (1.26, 3rd), batting average (.296, T-5th) and on-base percentage (.390, 6th).


Mueller began her collegiate coaching career with Colgate in 2017 as an assistant coach before joining the staff at her alma mater, the College of Charleston, in 2018. With Colgate, she helped facilitate marked improvements to the team’s average (.222 to .273), slugging percentage (.312 to .417) and home run totals (15 to 29) from the squad’s 2016 season.


The team’s .417 slugging percentage represented the top mark in the conference, as did its 0.66 home runs per game. The following season in Charleston, Mueller oversaw an NFCA All-Mid-Atlantic Region First Team selection.


Mueller’s appointment at Charleston represented a homecoming after she spent the 2013-16 seasons as an outfielder with the Cougars, posting a batting average north of .340 in the final three seasons of her four-year career.


She was a two-time All-CAA Second Team selection and was also named to the NFCA All-Mid-Atlantic Region Third Team her senior year after hitting .367/.425/.483 (66-for-180) with 13 doubles, one triple, two home runs and 33 RBI.


Her 66 hits during her 2016 campaign ranked 10th-most in a single season in program history, and her .369 average represented the seventh-best mark in a single season in program history. During her junior 2015 slate, she represented the team leader in total hits (55), triples (4), RBI (41), total bases (85) and slugging percentage (.541).


“I love the coaching staff and I love who we have on. Being with them on a day-to-day basis, Bear and Jenn [Salling], I just love learning from them,” Mueller added. “I think that we’re all really big go-getters and we’re all really pushing forward. With where the program’s going into the Big 12, we’re the perfect people for it and I’m really excited to be with them every day.”

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Cassady Brewer

The UCF softball team has announced its second coaching hire of the offseason, as the program brings back Knights alum Cassady Brewer as UCF’s third assistant coach.


Brewer rounds out head coach Cindy Ball-Malone’s staff ahead of the 2024 spring campaign, along with Becca Mueller, who joined the ranks of UCF’s staff earlier this month after a three-year stint with the California Golden Bears, and Jenn Salling, who enters her second season as an assistant coach with UCF.


“It’s always fun to come back home,” Brewer said. “One of my biggest goals was to be able to work under [Coach Bear], and it’s really exciting to be able to come and work at UCF again with the direction the program is going, what she’s been able to do in the past five years and the respect that she’s been able to put on UCF’s name.”


Brewer, a four-year starter with the Knights from 2016-19, returns to UCF following three seasons on Florida Gators head coach Tim Walton’s staff from 2021-23. She most recently served as Florida’s volunteer assistant coach in 2023 on the heels of two years as the program’s coordinator of video and data analysis.


In her three seasons in Gainesville, the Apopka, Florida, native helped lead the Gators to a collective 132-52 record, including three NCAA Regional appearances, two Super Regional appearances and one Women’s College World Series berth in 2022.


As a four-year catcher with the Knights during her playing career prior to joining Florida’s coaching staff, Brewer was well-decorated for her contributions. She compiled an aggregate .316/.437/.479 (180-for-570) line in 216 games spanning four seasons, accompanied by a .916 OPS, 41 doubles, 16 home runs, 106 RBI and 77 runs scored.


“I had the biggest amount of respect playing for [Coach Bear] and I still do,” Brewer added. “She changed my career and how I viewed softball. Working for someone as great as Bear, I learned so much in just one year as a player, now getting to come back and learn from her as a coach. She changed my life and she changed everything for me softball-wise. Being able to learn from her and hopefully do that for future athletes is what attracted me the most [to this opportunity].”


She also represented a steady and reliable presence behind the plate, committing only 20 errors in 971 total chances, good for a .979 career fielding percentage, while throwing out 33 of 71 (46.5 percent) of attempted base-stealers. Brewer added 179 assists in her four-year tenure as well, including a season-high 87 during her freshman 2016 slate.


She was recognized by the American Athletic Conference in each of her four years donning the Black and Gold, as she was honored with three First Team All-Conference selections from 2016-18 and a Second Team All-Conference selection in 2019, her final season. She too was named to The American’s All-Rookie team in 2016, while also taking home the AAC’s Rookie of the Year honors.


Brewer was twice recognized with NFCA All-Region selections as well, being added to the NFCA’s First Team All-Region in 2018 and the NFCA’s Second Team All-Region in 2019.


Her .341 batting average in 2019 paced the team, and she led the Knights in on-base percentage and slugging percentage in each of her final three seasons from 2017-19.


Brewer’s name remains scattered throughout the Knights’ all-time record lists as well, as she still holds third (.491, 2018), sixth (.452, 2019) and ninth place (.438, 2017) on UCF’s all-time single-season on-base percentage list.


Her 16 doubles in 2019 were good for a share of first in a single season in program history until freshman Aubrey Evans broke the record with 18 in 2023, and her 37 walks in 2018 are still good for the third-most in a single season in program history. Her 17 attempted base-stealers thrown out in 2018 remain the most in a single season in program history as well.


Brewer also ranks second on the UCF all-time career on-base percentage list (.437) and walks list (121), fifth in career doubles (41), sixth in career slugging percentage (.479), and shares eighth place on the career average list (.316).


“Being able to come home is one of the greatest feelings,” Brewer continued. “I loved UCF and all my experiences there. I loved the change in one year that I saw under Bear. Coming into a new position as a coach, and having been around athletes who were better than me as players and being able to now coach them and help them further their softball careers, as well as outside of softball, is really fun.”

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