All Things Osprey: Basketball squads cap off regular season, while softball picks up trio of weekend wins

Riley Platt, Sports Editor
February 28, 2022

Things didn’t get off to a great start for many of the University of North Florida athletic teams this week, but men’s basketball and softball carried the torch in the latter half to close out the weekend with some meaningful wins.

Softball hosted the Florida Gators, the third-ranked team in the nation, on Tuesday. While the Ospreys weren’t able to reel in a win, hosting a team of that caliber is an accomplishment all on its own. It’s not often that smaller Division I schools like UNF get to host a top five team. 

Plenty of hard work from all over the UNF athletic department staff goes into these events, especially when hosting a Southeastern Conference (SEC) school, so make sure to share some encouragement any time you run into them around campus.

Softball suffered a few more losses to big-time programs Iowa and Notre Dame on Friday but bounced back over the weekend. The Ospreys completed a comeback to take down another Big Ten opponent, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, on Saturday. They followed this up with dominant wins over Siena and Princeton. In addition to some notable wins, UNF outfielder Kayla Harper garnered national attention, making an appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10 with a diving catch at Florida on Wednesday. 

Men’s basketball struggled on Wednesday in a blowout loss to Jacksonville University (JU), but they were able to rebound with an overtime win against Stetson on Saturday. Speaking of JU, women’s basketball had no trouble against the Dolphins on Thursday, cruising to a 72-54 win in the River City Rumble.

The ASUN tournament takes place this week for both men’s and women’s basketball. Both squads will take to Nashville, Tenn. to face Lipscomb in the opening round.

Beach volleyball began their season this weekend, with new head coach Doug Wright picking up his first win as leader of the Ospreys. UNF took down the University of Tampa on Saturday to accomplish this feat. The squad also took down Southern Mississippi and Alabama-Birmingham to get off to a strong start in 2022.

Baseball struggled again, getting swept by the Connecticut Huskies. While this hasn’t been an ideal start to the season, the Ospreys will have a chance to change everything when they host the Florida Gators at home on Tuesday.

With plenty of exciting events coming up, make sure to stay tuned with Spinnaker throughout the week to stay updated with your Ospreys!

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