The sudden end to the 2020 NCAA softball season due to coronavirus concerns also marked the early conclusion of a promising campaign for the No. 3 Longhorns.
One day after the NCAA canceled all winter and spring sport championships due to concerns about COVID-19, the Big 12 announced it was canceling all athletic competition for the remainder of the academic year.
In the final weekend tournament before conference play begins, the Longhorns are slated to take on one of the most anticipated opponents of the season in a rematch of 2019’s super regional: No. 10 Alabama.
Senior pitcher Miranda Elish is in her second season as the star of the Texas program, and she continues to live up to the hype. But the Longhorns’ team numbers this year are even greater than those from her first season in Austin.
Senior pitcher Miranda Elish has already had her fair share of highlight moments in the early goings, but Sunday’s performance against New Mexico put her in the company of Texas greats.
Junior second baseman Janae Jefferson went 3-for-5 with a walk at the plate over two games Saturday as the No. 2 Texas Longhorns defeated the Texas Southern Tigers and the Liberty Flames by scores of 13-5 and 3-0, respectively.
In a game where the Longhorns were the heavy favorite, Texas went scoreless for three innings before earning two runs off of Liberty's pitching mistakes. “I asked the team (after this game) to pick it up this weekend because I don’t think we are playing as well as we should right now,” head coach Mike White said.
Not since the height of Texas’ first head coach Connie Clark’s program has the Texas softball team reached such heights. The team will try to continue that level of success in the 2020 Longhorn Invitational, which starts Friday.
The Texas Longhorns, who had beaten two top-15 teams in the Judi Garman Classic tournament, were in trouble through three innings Sunday. Trailing 2-1 to unranked Boise State, the Texas bats had fallen dead.
