CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – After going 16-2 in conference play during the regular season, UCF has earned the No. 1 seed for the American Athletic Conference Softball Championship, which takes place May 7-9 at UCF Softball Complex in Orlando.
 
All of Thursday's quarterfinals games and both of Friday's semifinal games of the championship will be carried live on The American Digital Network. Saturday's final will be televised live on ESPN2 at 1 p.m. Eastern. The winner of the tournament will earn The American's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
 
The Knights, who won 11 of their last 12 conference games to close the regular-season, finished with a four-game lead on second-place Tulsa in the final standings en route to the No. 1 seed. UCF (46-7) earned a bye into the semifinals as the top seed will face the winner of No. 4 East Carolina (16-36) and No. 5 USF (35-19) at 5:30 p.m. ET on Friday in the second of two semifinal games in the single-elimination championship.
 
The championship begins at 11 a.m. ET Thursday with a quarterfinals matchup between No. 3-seeded Houston (27-26) and No. 6-seeded Memphis (19-33). The Cougars and the Tigers will meet for the fourth consecutive time this season as the two teams faced each other in the conference finale May 2-3. Memphis took two of the three regular-season meetings against Houston.
 
No. 2 Tulsa (34-17) will face No. 7 UConn (18-34) at 1:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday in the quarterfinals in another rematch from the final weekend of the regular season. The Hurricane set up the quarterfinals meeting with the Huskies by sweeping UConn in the final week of league play.
 
The final quarterfinals pairing have the fourth-seeded Pirates taking on the fifth-seeded Bulls at 4 p.m. ET on Thursday. The teams split a doubleheader on April 18 before East Carolina won the series with a 7-3 rubber match victory on April 19.