The Texas Longhorns softball team was awarded the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, the first in school history.
Texas went 47-7 (23-4 Big 12) in the 2024 regular season, winning its first outright Big 12 regular season title since 2010. The Longhorns advanced to the championship in the Big 12 tournament before falling 5-1 to Oklahoma on Saturday.
Longhorns pitcher Citlaly Gutierrez expressed excitement about playing new teams in the tournament after the Big 12 season.
“It’s exciting seeing new faces,” Gutierrez said Saturday after striking out 10 Oklahoma batters. “We’ve played every team in the conference multiple times. It’s nice seeing a new team, especially (since) we’re hosting regionals.”
Texas hosts Siena in the Austin regional, set to start Friday. Texas head coach Mike White said Saturday that putting together scouting reports for regional opponents can be challenging.
“There’s not much information because most of us use synergy programs out there with a lot of video where you can just pull it up,” White said. “It becomes more of a challenge. We got back to the old school ways (of scouting).”
St. Francis (Pa.) and Northwestern are the other two members of the Austin regional. They play each other Friday.
No. 1️⃣ National Seed 🥎
🤘 @TexasSoftball
#RoadToWCWS pic.twitter.com/tM4HkATwKJ— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 12, 2024