Baylor
Texas
Lady Bears Set for Midweek Game vs. No. 9 Texas
3/26/2019 3:07:00 PM | Softball
UT is the fifth top-10 team Baylor has faced this season
 |
BAYLOR LADY BEARS (14-14, 1-2 Big 12) Location: Waco, Texas Conference: Big 12 Head Coach: Glenn Moore Roster | Stats | Game Notes |
BAYLOR (14-14, 1-2) vs. 9 TEXAS (29-6, 3-0 Big 12) March 27, 2019 Waco, Texas • Getterman Stadium Baylor Social Media:    |
 |
TEXAS (29-6, 3-0 Big 12) Location: Austin, Texas Conference: Big 12 Head Coach: Mike White Roster | Stats | Game Notes |
|
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
When Baylor softball (14-14, 1-2) hosts ninth-ranked Texas (29-6, 3-0) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, it won't be the same Longhorn team the Lady Bears swept last year or even the era when Cat Osterman dominated in the circle.
"This is the best Texas team, on paper, that I've seen since I've been here at Baylor," coach Glenn Moore said, "and that goes all the way back to the Cat Osterman era where you had dominating pitching but you don't have quite the offense. They have 10 hitters hitting over .300 and one pitcher that's 10-0 with a 0.45 ERA, another pitcher who's probably their ace with a 1.72 ERA. . . . They have the ability to go a long ways."
Mike White, who led Oregon to five Women's College World Series appearances, is in his first year at Texas and brought four of his former players with him from Eugene.
Miranda Elish is 8-4 with a 1.72 ERA and is also hitting .372 with four home runs and 22 RBI, while catcher Mary Iakopo (.346, 5, 22), first baseman Lauren Burke (.323, 2, 25) and third baseman Shannon Rhodes (.307, 3, 22) are part of a potent UT offense that is hitting .337 with 25 homers.
"I think he recruits very well and he will coach according to what the payers bring that he happens to have in a particular year," Moore said of White. "I've seen him use the short game, I've seen him swing the bats for the long ball. Probably a little more on the power side this year. But, I think it's indicative of the talent he has at the time. He's a good coach."
While Texas has won six in a row and 13 of its last 16, Baylor dropped two of three against No. 21 Oklahoma State in its opening Big 12 series and has lost five of its last six games. Sandwiched between run-rule losses on Friday (21-2) and Sunday (9-1), the Lady Bears had a bounce-back 2-1 win over the Cowgirls on Saturday.
"Watching the team respond the way we did Saturday, it was huge," Moore said. "I think it said a lot about the team and the fight that we have and something we're going to be able to carry forward benefit from in the future."
Sophomore pitcher Sidney Holman (9-7, 3.00 ERA) said the team meeting after Friday's lopsided loss was very constructive.
"We really grew together a lot after Friday night, and then we came out on Saturday and had a different mindset," Holman said.
There's a lot riding on Holman's shoulders, Moore said, because "she's our only arm right now that we can rely on."
"It's very important that she's efficient," he said. "She has a tendency to throw too many pitches per batter. She didn't see that on Saturday and you saw the outcome. On Sunday, she's seeing kids for the eighth, ninth and 10thtime, and that's very difficult to ask of anyone when you see a lineup that good."
Baylor has started six freshmen in two of the last five games and has had at least four freshmen in the lineup in 20 of the first 28 games. Centerfielder/shortstop Lou Gilbert is among the team leaders with a .289 batting average and four stolen bases, while Ana Watson and Josie Bower hit .500 and .429, respectively, in the opening conference series.
"I have to be realistic and realize that many of these payers would not be in our lineup if we were healthy," Moore said. "Where you might have a pitcher that you would expect to grow under the tutelage of Gia Rodoni and Regan Green, now she has to carry the bulk of everything and you can't even protect her by pulling them out, or you throw in the towel. How do you balance it in a way that we grow these kids and not lose them, confidence-wise."
Over the last nine games, junior first baseman Goose McGlaun is hitting .640 with 16 hits, one double, three homers, five RBI and five runs scored. Moved to the leadoff spot for the OSU series, she hit a Big 12-best .667 (10-of-15) in six games last week with a double, a homer and five walks with no strikeouts.
STORY LINES
• After going 1-2 vs. Oklahoma State last weekend, Baylor returns to Getterman Stadium to host No. 9 Texas.
• The Lady Bears went 1-2 against the Cowgirls with a 2-1 victory on Saturday. Trailing 1-0 heading into the sixth, BU plated a pair of runs in the bottom of the frame - one scored when Taylor Ellis walked with the bases loaded and the second off an infield single by Ana Watson - to take the lead. Sidney Holman pitched the complete game, allowing one run off three hits with six strikeouts. OSU had only one hit in the last six innings.
• Goose McGlaun has at least two hits in five of the last eight games. In the win vs. OSU, McGlaun went 1-for-1 at the plate.
• Ana Watson, who started at DP all three games, finished hitting .500 against Oklahoma State. The freshman hit her first career home run on Friday before recording the game winning RBI on Saturday.
• Saturday's crowd of 1,573 marked the third largest in Getterman Stadium history - 1,835 on April 12, 2014 vs. Oklahoma and 1,744 on May 6, 2014 vs. Texas. On the weekend, a total of 4,419 fans came out.
• Regan Green was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week March 5, marking her first career Big 12 weekly award. It is also Baylor's first weekly award of the season. Green pitched a complete game in the win over Southern Utah and matched her career high with 11 strikeouts. She struck out 50 percent of the batters she faced (22). It also marked her fourth career double-digit strikeout game.
• McGlaun leads Baylor at the plate, and is seventh in the Big 12, with a .410 batting average.
• Nicky Dawson has reached base safely in every game this season, making her 28-game streak a new career-high. She's also scored a team-high 18 runs.
• Kassidy Krupit is the team leader with 19 RBIs. She also leads the team with six home runs.
• Sidney Holman has been stellar in the circle for BU. She's pitched 95.2 innings and has allowed 53 runs off 101 hits with 81 strikeouts.
• Baylor is 9-3 when scoring first in 2019.
• The Lady Bears are 11-2 when the opponent scores two runs or less this season.
QUICK HITS
• Baylor will play 24 games against 12 programs that advanced to the 2018 NCAA Regionals, including WCWS participants Washington and Oklahoma.
• Baylor is 270-99 over the last 7 seasons, averaging over 38 wins per season since 2013.
• BU was picked 3rd in the Big 12 preseason coaches poll behind Oklahoma and Texas.
A LOOK AT TEXAS
• BU is 21-30 against the Longhorns and has won the last five contests against Texas.
• UT is coached by Mike White who is in his first year in Austin after spending the last nine years at Oregon where he led the Ducks to five WCWS appearances, five Pac-12 titles and nine-straight NCAA Super Regional appearances.
• Texas started out the season 10-0 before suffering its first loss of the year against LSU, 1-7.
• Over the weekend, the Longhorns swept their Big 12 opening series against Iowa State - 11-0 (5), 6-1, 7-2.
• Pitcher Miranda Elish was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week as she went 2-0 in the circle last week. She had a 0.00 ERA, her second career no-hitter, a one-hit shutout and 20 strikeouts. She also batted .364 with three runs scored, a grand slam and five RBIs. She was also named the NFCA National Pitcher of the Week.
