Texas Softball Advances to Women’s College World Series
The Texas Longhorns didn’t make it easy on themselves, but they’re heading to the Women’s College World Series after beating Texas A&M 6-5 in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Super Regionals on Sunday night.
The Longhorns lost Game 1 on Friday night to A&M 6-5, but then bounced back to beat the Aggies in extra innings on Saturday night.
The led to Sunday when the winner would advance to the Women’s College World Series and the loser would have its season end.
The Aggie put the first run of the game on the board in the top of the first inning when Trinity Cannon smoked a double to right-center field and scored Karen Wooley, who was helped by an error by Texas right fielder Ashton Maloney, who misplayed the ball off the wall.
Texas got itself going with a two-run third inning, when a wild pitch by Shaylee Ackerman led to Bella Dayton scoring from third to tie the game, with Ashton Maloney moving to second base. Then, Viviana Martinez doubled to left-center field, scoring Maloney and giving Texas a 2-1 lead.
Fast-forward to the fifth inning when Mia Scott hit a solo home run to extend Texas’ lead to 3-1.
A&M would cut the lead in half in the sixth inning with a Jazmine Hill ground out fielder’s choice, scoring Trinity Cannon.
But in the bottom half of the inning, Texas put three more runs on the board, which it turned out they needed. Maloney’s ground out made it 4-2 Texas, which was followed by RBI’s from Mia Scott and Viviana Martinez to put Texas up 6-2.
The Aggies got a three-run home run from Julia Cottrill off Teagan Kavan, to cut Texas’ lead down to 6-5. And with runners on first and second and two outs, Kavan was able to strike out Amari Harper to end the game and send the Longhorns to the Women’s College World Series.
Mac Morgan got the start in the circle and finished 5 1/3 innings with 4 hits and one earned run for UT.
This is Texas’ second trip to the Women’s College World Series under Mike White, with their lone other appearance coming in 2022 when they finished as runner-ups to Oklahoma. The Women’s College World Series begins on Thursday, May 30th.
