{"id":231462,"date":"2026-04-02T07:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T07:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/231462\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T07:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T07:16:09","slug":"no-1-softball-preview-at-no-4-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/231462\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 1 Softball preview: at No. 4 Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 No. 1 Texas Softball hits the road to Tuscaloosa, Ala., for a top-five road matchup at No. 4 Alabama on April 2-4 at Rhoads Stadium. Thursday&#8217;s series opener is set for 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network+. First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network, and Saturday&#8217;s series finale will begin at 5 p.m. on ESPN. Beth Mowins (play-by-play) and Michele Smith (analyst) will be in the booth for Friday and Saturday&#8217;s games.<\/p>\n<p>Notes<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Longhorns are 8-0 on the road this season. Texas&#8217; eight-straight wins on the road tie for the fourth-longest streak in the country.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Longhorns are coming off a Cotton Holdings Lone Star Showdown series win vs. No. 15 Texas A&amp;M on March 27-29 at McCombs Field.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas saw its program-record 29-game win streak end in its series finale vs. No. 15 Texas A&amp;M on March 29.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Longhorns are 11-2 against ranked opponents this season.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas is ranked No. 1 across all four major polls this week in ESPN.com\/USA Softball, NFCA, D1Softball and Softball America. Texas has been ranked in 67-consecutive NFCA Coaches polls.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas has accumulated 16 run-rule victories this season.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThursday will be the 13th all-time meeting between Texas and Alabama. Alabama leads the all-time series, 8-4.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas and Alabama will meet for the first time since 2023. It&#8217;ll be the first meeting as Southeastern Conference members for the two programs.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas is making its first trip to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama since the 2022 season. Alabama won both matchups that season. Texas is just 1-6 vs. Alabama in Tuscaloosa.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas is fresh off of the program&#8217;s first Women&#8217;s College World Series (WCWS) National Championship in 2025. The Longhorns finished the historic season with a program-record 56 victories and a 56-12 overall record.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Longhorns&#8217; 10-2 postseason run in 2025 culminated with a 2-1 Championship Series (third appearance in four years) win over Texas Tech. In the winner-takes-all game three, the Longhorns clinched a 10-4 victory.&#13;<br \/>\n\tHead coach <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/coaches\/mike-white\/3418\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3418\" target=\"_blank\">Mike White<\/a> is in his eighth season at helm of the Texas program and holds a 347-95-2 (.784) overall record during his time on the Forty Acres. In 17 combined seasons between Oregon (nine seasons) and Texas (eight seasons), White sports a 783-206-4 (.791) overall record.&#13;<br \/>\n\tWith a series win vs. Alabama, it would mark Texas&#8217; highest ranked conference road series win since taking two of three games at No. 3 Florida on March 15-17, 2025.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Longhorns Claim Lone Star Showdown<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Cotton Holdings Lone Star Showdown trophy is staying in Austin after the Longhorns topped No. 15 Texas A&amp;M in a three-game set on March 27-29. Texas claimed the first two games of the series, increasing their program-best win streak to 29 games.&#13;<br \/>\n\tA&amp;M salvaged the series and avoided the sweep with a 9-7 victory in this past Sunday&#8217;s series finale.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas leads the all-time series vs. Texas A&amp;M, 28-25.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>In the Rankings<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas is No. 1 across all four major polls for the second-straight week.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas has been ranked inside the top-5 of the NFCA Coaches poll for 40-consecutive weeks.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe Longhorns have been ranked inside the NFCA Coaches&#8217; poll top-10 in each of the last 41 weeks.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas has been ranked in each of the last 67 NFCA Coaches polls.&#13;<br \/>\n\tTexas has been ranked No. 1 in the NFCA Coaches Poll 19 times in program history.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Feeling Golden<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tFollowing last Saturday&#8217;s 3-2 win vs. No. 15 Texas A&amp;M, Texas Softball seniors <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/reese-atwood\/13295\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13295\" target=\"_blank\">Reese Atwood<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/leighann-goode\/13300\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13300\" target=\"_blank\">Leighann Goode<\/a> were recipients of the Athlete&#8217;s Unlimited &#8220;Golden Ticket&#8221;. The Golden Ticket signifies that Atwood and Goode were both drafted to the AUSL.&#13;<br \/>\n\tAtwood and Goode are two of four total Golden Ticket recipients this season. They join Texas Tech&#8217;s Nijaree Canady and Arizona&#8217;s Sydney Stewart.&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe 2026 AUSL College Draft will take place on Monday, May 4, at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Up Next<\/p>\n<p>Following a top-five showdown with the Crimson Tide, Texas returns to the friendly confines of McCombs Field to host No. 3 Oklahoma on April 10-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 No. 1 Texas Softball hits the road to Tuscaloosa, Ala., for a top-five road matchup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-231462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}