Amid transfer portal chaos, head coach Mike White will look for two new coaches to fill his staff while Texas softball welcomes a new player to the program.<\/p>\n
Justin McLeod at D1Softball broke the news on Monday that associate head coach Kristen Zaleski will not return to the Texas coaching staff for the 2027 season. It wasn\u2019t stated if Zaleski was asked to leave the program or if her departure was of her own accord.<\/p>\n
Headed into 2026 and Zaleski\u2019s fourth season with the team, White had announced Zaleski\u2019s promotion to associate head coach on Feb. 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Zaleski\u2019s promotion to associate head coach is richly deserved,\u201d White said. \u201cShe has been instrumental to our success \u2014 leading our outfielders, serving as first base coach on game day and elevating our hitters with her approach. Her standards, teaching acumen and ability to connect with our student-athletes has raised our program\u2019s ceiling year-after-year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zalenski is credited with placing junior outfielder Kayden Henry in center field during her first year on the Forty Acres. Her mentorship was integral to the Longhorns\u2019 outfield, with Henry maintaining a perfect fielding percentage in 2026 and keeping it above .980 in both her freshman and sophomore years.<\/p>\n
Just a day later, Tennessee softball announced Ehren Earleywine, Texas\u2019 other associate head coach, as its newest addition to the staff. Earleywine spent just one season coaching at Red & Charline McCombs Field, focusing his talents on the Longhorns\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m leaving Texas with nothing but gratitude,\u201d Earleywine said in a Tennessee news release. \u201cIt\u2019s been one of the most rewarding chapters of my life, and I\u2019ll always be proud to have been a Longhorn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with the departure of multiple coaches, Texas has its focus on the transfer portal, which opened on Monday.<\/p>\n
Incoming senior catcher Samantha Swan announced on X that she will be joining the Longhorns for her final year of eligibility on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Swan isn\u2019t an unfamiliar face. The Longhorns faced off against her during the three-game Austin Super Regional, in which Swan launched a homer off the scoreboard in centerfield. Additionally, Swan spent her time playing softball at Georgetown High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt so good to be back in town,\u201d Swan said after the first game of the Austin Super Regional. \u201cSeeing some of the girls in Texas that I played with growing up, and just being able to compete with them \u2026 was really great.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a Sun Devil in 2026, Swan was selected unanimously to the First-Team All-Big 12 with her 69 hits and 12 home runs throughout the season. As a catcher, she recorded a .987 fielding percentage and managed to throw out three players in their attempts to steal a base against the ASU defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid transfer portal chaos, head coach Mike White will look for two new coaches to fill his staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-333195","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\/333195","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=333195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}