Texas Softball 2024 - Farewell to the Big 12 (and back to OKC?)

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

Meatball served up tepid. And mashed like a potato. 

[Js1 85,307]

Bad gamble by Mike

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

Mac has earned the right to start 1 game per series. Mike White disagrees.

[The_Great_Hornsby 3,236]

Starting lineup should be Kavan, Citlay, and Mac. Czech can do relief work for a couple inning per weekend. Disrespectful to Mac who has been much better than Czech on the year. 

[LTtxfan 49,162]

Score??

[The Longest Horn 138]

Just now, LTtxfan said:

Score??

0-3 top 3rd

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

Back to our unclutch ways so far. Start driving the ball and making fewer mistakes and you'll have a lot better chance of living up to your ranking. 

[Cairn Horn88 8,262]

This #8 pitcher shut us out 7 innings on Thur, and now 3 innings today.  Stud, and our offense had done nothing….making it too easy on them.

[bschoolprof 6,252]

I would have gone with Mac too, but our offense shitting the bed the last couple of weeks is the real issue.  I feel like a 3 run lead is insurmountable for us against a good pitcher.  

One thing that's really frustrating is our our lack of adjustments throughout the game(s) as we see the same pitcher multiple times through the lineup or across games.  e.g., they like to throw changeups early and often?  Oh well, no way to beat that.    

Kilfoyl has been good today, but not unhittable.  We are swinging at shit that's off the plate and getting into bad counts.  Our batters that have been patient today have gotten on.  We get one bad strike call off the plate and then we start swinging at everything off the plate.  At this point, I'd let blue ring us up before swing at shit that's an automatic out. But it's like our coaches never talk to the girls about this.  It's just the same shit over and over.    

 

Edited March 30 by bschoolprof

[Cairn Horn88 8,262]

We have only scored 2 runs in 3 games.  No way we score 4 or more today.

[HuntinHorn 975]

Weak ass bats ….

[Cairn Horn88 8,262]

After seeing this pitcher for 11 innings, we are clueless at the plate.

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

Kilfoyl has dominated our lineup.

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

These girls had better find their bats, or this team won't be going anywhere but home. Playing like mentally fragile frontrunners, which is sad for a squad with great talent. 

[D3zii 3,678]

Mike White seems kinda stubborn in his ways.  But i guess you can say that about it most coaches. 

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

Bella left early again

[bschoolprof 6,252]

Between our terrible baserunning and terrible approach at the plate, we deserve to lose. Just a poorly coached team right now. 

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

I have grave doubts about this team's coaching and on-field leadership. Too much ongoing stupidity. Go get on the bus. 

[torre 1,285]

Down 3,  why try to steal ?

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

OKST wins the series. Hopefully Texas shows some fight against OU

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

Not even competitive. Some hard questions need to be answered right now. 

[The Longest Horn 138]

Well, that sucked 

[BonzoMontreaux 1,038]

Brutal watch. After 1st inning pitching and D hit their stride. Lack of timely hitting and just hitting was absent all weekend.

[Mile High Horn 11]

Man, that was an embarrassing display of softball over the weekend.  I feel for the Texas fans in the stands who had to witness that debacle.  

Leigh Ann Goode needs to start at shortstop. Viviana Martinez needs to learn how to catch a fucking ground ball.  

We need to teach our baserunners not to leave early. This is a perpetual issue for a team that seemingly has not learned this basic concept.  

We need at least one player to show some leadership and hold her teammates accountable.  Team captain Alyssa Washington has failed at being a leader thus far.  

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if Oklahoma State were a better softball team and we executed basic softball fundamentals.  I think we lost a series to an inferior team this weekend.

[LTtxfan 49,162]

Thanks for updates... not a good road trip

[bschoolprof 6,252]

19 minutes ago, Mile High Horn said:

Man, that was an embarrassing display of softball over the weekend.  I feel for the Texas fans in the stands who had to witness that debacle.  

Leigh Ann Goode needs to start at shortstop. Viviana Martinez needs to learn how to catch a fucking ground ball.  

We need to teach our baserunners not to leave early. This is a perpetual issue for a team that seemingly has not learned this basic concept.  

We need at least one player to show some leadership and hold her teammates accountable.  Team captain Alyssa Washington has failed at being a leader thus far.  

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if Oklahoma State were a better softball team and we executed basic softball fundamentals.  I think we lost a series to an inferior team this weekend.

Agree with a lot of this, except Goode can't hit and Vivi can't field.  Pick your poison.  

random thoughts:

1) Who would have thought Mia Scott would be one of our more reliable infielders?  She had an error today, but has played relatively clean to me, at least given what I was expecting.

2) The announcers said they asked coach about our hitting woes.  I didn't hear this interview, but he chalked it up not to approach, but just that our batters needed to work individually more on their swings and in the cages.  Couldn't disagree more and I think that's one of CMW's big weaknesses.  We just don't play smart softball sometimes.  There's a reason our patient hitters like Bella or a slapper like Maloney had the only hits of the day against OSU.  They don't chase and instead wait for their pitch. 

[Cairn Horn88 8,262]

R  H  E  L      Gm 3         R  H   E  L      Gm 1

0  2   1   1    TEXAS        0   7   1   7

3  1    0  0    OKSt          5   9   0  7

Horns had 7 hits in game 1, only 2 hits in game 3, while committing 2 errors in those games 

OKSt with only 1 hit in game 3, but scored 3 runs, committed no errors

We had 5 fewer hits the 2nd time we had seen this pitcher…she was better, we were not

Flat-out just laid an egg….If we don’t correct this, OU will run-rule our butts.

Edited March 30 by Cairn Horn88

[torre 1,285]

MW postgame quote.    Hopefully,  he addressed hitting but was not published.    We had 7 hits off Kilfoyl on Thursday, 2 today.   She adjusted, we did not.    The HBP by Czech was costly and  added a runner with the error to set the stage for the 3 run HR.   Hindsight always 20/20,  but may have been a good time to visit circle since next batter Wang leads OKSt with 11 HRs and added another.

No surprise OU swept Kansas.   Neither team plays until the series next Friday.    Team confidence took a hit in this weekend.

 

Quote

Unfortunately, though, Oklahoma State's Lexi Kilfoyl (13-2) was doing the same thing to the Texas offense as Longhorn batters were retired in order in four different innings, while no more than one UT batter reached base during the same inning on the afternoon. Martinez was the only batter to reach second base during the game as the Arizona native advanced to second on a ground ball off the bat of Alyssa Washington for the second out in the second inning. 

FROM HEAD COACH MIKE WHITE

"I think we showed we have the ability, but, unfortunately, we just had that one mistake today. The depth of our staff is the strength of our staff. Mac Morgan is throwing pretty well right now. Estelle Czech did a great job with the exception of the one mistake. And, of course, Citlaly (Gutierrez) pitched real well last night and Teagan (Kavan) will bounce back. And we always have Sophia (Simpson) as well, so what we have to take is that we can pitch well in these situations."

https://texassports.com/news/2024/3/30/no-2-2-softball-concludes-series-in-stillwater.aspx

 

[torre 1,285]

After an overall great Texas WBB season,  full speed ahead for softball. 

Avoiding the sweep in Stillwater seems to have prevented RPI plunge. (first post)     Softball America ranking poll (2nd post) only current one I could find.

OKSt at #10 RPI seems low.    LSU swept aggy this past weekend.

 

[Js1 85,307]

Half the rankings come out later today, the other half tomorrow. I’m sure we will drop to 5-6

[torre 1,285]

21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Half the rankings come out later today, the other half tomorrow. I’m sure we will drop to 5-6

Should have mentioned,  the RPI (first post) is from NCAA Softball.    Which ranking carries the most weight ?

[bschoolprof 6,252]

Texas thoughts:

Pretty disappointed by our offensive showing this past weekend.  I am not confident heading into this weekend.  We'll be lucky to take 1 out of 3 against OU, unless they are somehow massively overrated.  

 

General thoughts:

Is anyone else tired of all the reviews in college softball? One thing I like about softball, compared to say baseball or football, is the games are usually a crisp 1.5-2 hours. Now we have ump reviews and coach reviews and they take for fucking ever.  Ump reviews should be banned and each team should get 1 challenge.  

[Js1 85,307]

28 minutes ago, torre said:

Should have mentioned,  the RPI (first post) is from NCAA Softball.    Which ranking carries the most weight ?

The rankings don't really matter - the committee doesn't use media rankings.  It's all about RPI. 

[Js1 85,307]

19 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Texas thoughts:

Pretty disappointed by our offensive showing this past weekend.  I am not confident heading into this weekend.  We'll be lucky to take 1 out of 3 against OU, unless they are somehow massively overrated.  

 

General thoughts:

Is anyone else tired of all the reviews in college softball? One thing I like about softball, compared to say baseball or football, is the games are usually a crisp 1.5-2 hours. Now we have ump reviews and coach reviews and they take for fucking ever.  Ump reviews should be banned and each team should get 1 challenge.  

Texas thoughts - I am not confident at all.  Maybe the OK State series is a wakeup call, but I doubt it

General - YES.  This shit is getting tiresome.  I want the calls to be right, but ridiculously long reviews are getting irritating. Also noticing more delays for reporting player changes, like, during at-bats.  Is Mike too dumb to properly report changes between innings? 

[shadow_operative2.0 15,964]

The changes really kill me. Should be like beer league where the hitter/catcher just mentions it to blue as they walk up.

Although we did have a pretty big fuckup last year or the year before when one of our assistants dropped the ball on that. 

[Js1 85,307]

5 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

The changes really kill me. Should be like beer league where the hitter/catcher just mentions it to blue as they walk up.

Although we did have a pretty big fuckup last year or the year before when one of our assistants dropped the ball on that. 

Unless Mike is winging it, I’m not sure why he’s not reporting re-entry as soon as the inning ends. And not when our player is in the middle of an at bat

[torre 1,285]

https://www.ncaa.org/news/2021/8/13/general-video-review-challenges-approved-for-softball.aspx#:~:text=Under the new rule%2C each,the entirety of the game.

 

Don't know if there are exceptions,  seems like more.  Official rule above says 2 reviews by coach the the entirety of game.    The umpire can review after the 6th inning,  the way I read. 

I think coaches sometimes ask for a review/player change if on offense only to disrupt the opposing pitcher's rhythm.

[Cairn Horn88 8,262]

On 3/30/2024 at 2:07 PM, D3zii said:

Mike White seems kinda stubborn in his ways.  But i guess you can say that about it most coaches. 

Kinda stubborn …can get you beat.

[Js1 85,307]

4th in a couple of polls, 5th in one and 6th in another 

[bschoolprof 6,252]

If we get swept by OU, but otherwise win out (except for a respectable loss in the big 12 tournament), you'd have to think we'd get a top 8 seed given our schedule?

[Js1 85,307]

4 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

If we get swept by OU, but otherwise win out (except for a respectable loss in the big 12 tournament), you'd have to think we'd get a top 8 seed given our schedule?

We need 1 this weekend. I don’t want to chance it. But our RPI is still very high 

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

Yeah if you don’t go at least 2-4 against the Oklahoma schools then there can’t be any complaining if we are on the outside looking in as a super regional host 

[bschoolprof 6,252]

No way we take 2 out of three from the sooners.  I mean maybe I guess, but yeah no way.  

[Js1 85,307]

17 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

No way we take 2 out of three from the sooners.  I mean maybe I guess, but yeah no way.  

Just need 1 

[torre 1,285]

Like to glean the opponent's board for any pertinent info.    Hard to disagree with this Sooner's analysis.   He may have an undergrad degree from Texas.

 

While I don't think it will make a lot of difference, I think the 2 losses to Oklahoma State work to our advantage just a bit. It's obvious the Horns didn't overlook OSU and those losses must have created some doubts for them. A bad weekend this week buries them into a 3rd place position in the conference that they probably can't dig themselves out of. That combination of doubt and fear could make them play tight. Texas still has some defensive question marks and when they play tight, those deficiencies get exposed. A strong showing by the Sooners Friday night could set the tone for the weekend. I think the first game is very important. The question for me is, do the Sooners have 2 pitchers that can keep the Texas hitters off balance in the manner that OSU did? Texas pitching is good enough to keep the run totals reasonably low. My prediction is the Sooners take 2 of 3.

7x National Champion Oklahoma Sooners Softball - DirtBurglars

[Js1 85,307]

"Sooners take 2 of 3"

Really bold prediction by the Gooners

 

[bschoolprof 6,252]

22 minutes ago, Js1 said:

"Sooners take 2 of 3"

Really bold prediction by the Gooners

 

I'd be thrilled with 2/3.  

[perfectchaos007 6,632]

Feels like every year Texas is just trying to “steal” a game in the Sooner series. Ain’t shit changed 

[Js1 85,307]

3 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Feels like every year Texas is just trying to “steal” a game in the Sooner series. Ain’t shit changed 

Until Gasso is gone, will it ever?  

[bschoolprof 6,252]

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Until Gasso is gone, will it ever?  

Nope.  We'll never get over the OU hump while she is there.  No one will honestly.  She's the GOAT for a reason.

I'm a bit more disappointed in not really getting over the OSU hump.  We did sweep them last year, but we have been 3rd at best in the conference for a while now.  It won't get any easier in the SEC.