Day two of the Bevo Classic marked two more wins for the Longhorns as they improve to 10–0 — the fourth time they start a season with 10 consecutive victories during head coach Mike White’s six years in the program.
No. 1 Texas softball returned to McCombs Field Saturday after its home opener on Friday with another pair of victories — a 6–0 win against the UMass Minutewomen and a second victory against Maryland, this time 8–3, capped off the night.
The Longhorns dominated the first game of the day through base hitting and aggressive baserunning. All six runs came from eight hits and paired up with eight stolen bases.
“I like to be able to run the bases and put pressure on defenses,” White said. “Especially when we were not really hitting a lot of long balls today. We had to kind of do that.”
Texas’ first score of the game came after UMass’s junior pitcher Natalee Horton walked two batters in the second inning. This allowed senior catcher Katie Cimusz to nail her first career triple and her first hit of the season with a deep shot to left-center that bounced off the wall and drove home junior designated player Reese Atwood and graduate infielder Joley Mitchell.
In a big third inning, the Longhorns scored three more runs. With the bases loaded, sophomore infielder Katie Stewart would hit a sac-fly deep into center field allowing senior utility Mia Scott to score from third base. Junior utility Leighann Goode hit a single down toward third base, leading sophomore outfielder Kayden Henry home. A throwing error by the catcher would allow Atwood to add another run. The play ended a three-run-scoring inning growing Texas’s lead to 5–0.
A lone score in the fourth inning marked the third straight scoring inning for the Longhorns. A single from Atwood would bring home Henry from second base after she stole second, increasing Texas’ lead to six.
Longhorn pitchers combined for a complete game shutout as junior Citlaly Gutierrez and freshman Cambria Salmon combined for the shutout. Gutierrez started the game and pitched four innings and struck out seven. Salmon would come in and pitched the remaining three innings, throwing five strikeouts of her own.
The Longhorns hitting clinic continued early in the second game of the night against the Terrapins. A triple from Atwood hit out towards right field brought in the opening scoring in the first inning.
A huge seven-score inning started with junior utility player Kaydee Bennett. Singled with a strong hit toward third base, Bennett brought in two runners from second and third base. Scoring more in the second, Atwood hit a deep ball out into right-center field and added two more runs to the scoreboard. Finishing off the inning Stewart hit a 232-foot booming home run into right field, increasing the score to eight.
The fifth inning was dicey for the Longhorns, as the Terrapins scored three runs. However a change of pitchers in the sixth inning handed the ball off to Gutierrez who came in and earned the save, extending the Longhorns perfect start to 10–0
“You’ve got to have multiple pitchers to come in and do different things,” White said. “(Gutierrez) right now is doing a really good job coming in. Cam Salmon came into that other game and did a great job. So it’s good that you can go and point to different pitchers.”
Texas closes out the Bevo Classic Sunday at 12:30 p.m with a rematch against No. 11/8 Texas Tech.
