After experiencing its first loss of this regular season against the No. 18 Stanford Cardinal on Friday in the Hillenbrand Invitational in Tucson, No. 1 ranked Texas softball (15-1, 0-0 SEC) and head coach Mike White cleared the competition this weekend with four straight wins.
Katie Stewart and Reese Atwood show Texas softball's strength and the plate and resilience in four consecutive victories to close out Hillenbrand Invitational in Arizona
Texas's best players led the Longhorns to multiple convincing run-rule victories in their past four games in Tucson since Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Citaly Gutierrez and Teagan Kavan both registered wins in tremendous performances, starting pitching on the mound for the Longhorns in the past 48 hours.
The immediate response from White's squad following the 9-5 loss to Stanford on Friday afternoon (Feb. 21) was an 18-2 thrashing in five innings in a run-rule win over the Colorado State Rams. Reese Atwood was a perfect 3-of-3 at the plate, with a whopping five runs batted in and three runs scored.
Atwood's team-high five RBIs in the 16-run mauling of Colorado State on Friday came courtesy of two home runs that plated multiple runs on each swing of the bat out to center and left field.
Katie Stewart took the mantle of the offensive spark plug for the Longhorns in their second of two dominant wins over the Rams this weekend on Sunday afternoon. Stewart hit a grand slam as part of Texas's eight-run outburst in the top of the second inning against Colorado State today. She salso drove in the run that sealed the run-rule victory in five innings with a single to right field in the top of the fifth.
White and the Longhorns turned to other upperclassmen leaders on the team in a key extra innings ranked win over the No. 11 Arizona Wildcats on Saturday (Feb. 22). Kayden Henry and Joley Mitchell combined for four RBIs and three runs scored, including the eventual game-winning run in the eighth inning, in clutch time in extras vs. the Wildcats.
Texas has showed its versatility and depth in the pitching rotation and with the bats this series to respond to adversity after the season's first loss vs. Stanford a couple of days ago. Even when the top bats this season, Atwood and Stewart, only combined for one hit and no RBIs against Arizona in a ranked matchup yesterday, other leaders stepped up when it mattered in clutch time in the late innings.
White's squad returns to Red & Charline McCombs Field next Friday for the Longhorn Invitational in Austin.