The Texas Longhorns softball team is just two wins away from getting back to the Women’s College World Series. All that stands in their way is the red hot Arizona State Sun Devils.
ASU is on a nine game win streak having beaten Texas Tech for the Big 12 title and Texas A&M to win the regional.
“We’ve been saying the Devils are getting hot, and we got hot at the right time of the season,” Sun Devil first baseman Katie Chester told Cronkite News.
Star pitcher Kenzie Brown will be in the circle to start the series. Brown has won her last five starts, including the aforementioned wins over Tech and A&M.
Texas softball head coach Mike White said Brown is a carbon copy of Texas star pitcher Teagan Kavan.
“They hide the ball well, they move the ball up and down with a good change up, and they’re competitors,” said White. “It’s going to be an interesting matchup between the two of them.”
Of course, Arizona State may be on a win streak, but so is Texas. The Horns have won seven in a row, including winning the absolutely brutal SEC conference tournament and beating Alabama, the number one seed in the WCWS, along the way.
“We also are playing our best right now,” said Kavan. “I think we’re excited. It’s going to be a fun matchup.”
And the Horns aren’t the least bit afraid of going up against Brown.
“She has to face us just as much as we have to face her,” senior catcher Reese Atwood said Thursday.
Mike White says he has a plan on how his team should approach Brown at the plate – a whole team approach.
“We can’t rely on just one or two batters to do it, but we’ve just got to wear her down a little bit,” said White. “She has a tendency to throw a lot of pitches, so that’s going to be plan A, to try and get a lot of pitches out of her and kind of wear her down. But she’s known to be able to throw a lot of pitches too, so that may or may not work.
“I know she can get in some trouble, but we’ve got to take most of those opportunities, if she does allow us to create those opportunities, we’ve got to be able to drive those runs in.”
The Longhorns also have something that the Sun Devils don’t, experience playing in big games and tough environments.
“You can’t practice that,” White said. “We try to try to get the returners to bring that out and explain to the rest of the newcomers, the ones that haven’t been here before, what it’s like and what to expect.
“They all come back to the same same thing – doing the small things the right way. The little things make a big difference. So it’s the fundamentals, the basics, being where your feet are, playing for your teammate. All those little things add up into competing.”
If Texas puts that experience to use, harnesses the home field advantage and continues to play strong ball, they’ll be well prepared to finish off the Super Regional and head back to Oklahoma City to try to defend their national title.
TEXAS WOMEN’S GOLF IN THE NCAA’S
The Texas women’s golf team is out on the course at the NCAA national championship. It is the 34th time the Horns have made the NCAA’s, including the tenth year in a row.
Texas is fresh off a dominating 11 stroke win in the regionals.
The NCAA’s are a marathon, not a sprint.
All 30 qualifying teams compete in stroke play for the first 54 holes before narrowing the field down to 15. Five players compete and the lowest four scores count toward the team total.
The remaining teams play a fourth round of stroke play to with the top eight advancing to match play.
The individual with the lowest score following the first 72 holes is crowned the national champion.
Match play begins on days five and six in the quarterfinals and semifinals. The top eight teams match up in the semifinals with one versus eight, two versus seven and so on. The format consists of head-to-head individual matches with one point awarded for each win and the first team to three wins advances.
Finals: The final two surviving teams play for the Team National Championship, with the first team to secure three points winning the title.
Texas is fielding a strong lineup at the NCAA’s, lead by Farah O’Keefe who is one of 12 finalists for the player of the year award.
TEXAS LINEUP (with world amateur golf ranking):
Farah O’Keefe No. 4
Lauren Kim No. 15
Cindy Hsu No. 28
Selina Liao
Angela Heo No. 212
Vivian Lu (alternate) No. 169
If the Horns can make it to match play, O’Keefe, Kim and Hsu gives them a very strong chance to win the top three matches and advance.
