Ex-UT star Sun joins Nebraska volleyball
Nebraska announced that ex-UT standout Lexi Sun will join its volleyball program Tuesday.
Sun is eligible to play this year, which will be her sophomore season. The 6-foot-2 outside hitter also visited USC and Wisconsin before settling on Nebraska, which won the NCAA championship in 2017.
Sun announced in February that she would transfer from Texas.
In a news release issued by Nebraska, Sun said, “After visiting Nebraska for the first time, I found that overall the program is the best fit for me when taking into consideration what the entire program has to offer. I cannot wait to be a part of the enthusiastic Husker volleyball family and sixth in the nine-team Big 12.
That said, Texas (31-17, 12-6 Big 12) is sitting pretty even though Pierce said the Longhorns can play “ugly, ugly, ugly at times,” like for eight innings on a Tuesday night. Again, didn’t really matter because they can still muster up some magic.
How else would one explain light-hitting David Hamilton crushing a walkoff grand slam to key a fiverun ninth-inning rally for an 11-10 win over Texas State? Hamilton’s known more for his fancy glovework and his 26 stolen bases, but there he was coming through with the biggest home run of his life for Texas’ 12th comeback victory. am so excited to experience it with my new teammates very soon. I want to thank my family, whom I consider my number one support system. I am so thankful to have them by my side in this journey. We all can’t wait to be
Pierce has made his Longhorns relevant again.
His Horns travel to take on dangerous, ninth-ranked Texas Tech (34-12, 11-7) starting Friday, with all kinds of positive things on the line.
Like momentum in the final month of the regular season.
Like a possible Big 12 championship.
Like a potential national seed.
“Coach told us to no matter what our individual numbers are, to clear our minds and set our eyes on the path ahead,” said closer Andy McGuire, maybe the only reliable arm in relief. “In May, anything can happen. A lot of fun things are coming up.”
Few would normally include a trip to Lubbock among those, certainly Huskers.”
A California native, Sun arrived at Texas in 2017 as the nation’s top-rated recruit. She earned all-Big 12 honors this past season and won the conference’s freshman of the week award on three occasions. Her 3.27 kills per set ranked behind only Micaya White’s 3.4.
Softball: After swinging a big bat, Texas sophomore Kaitlyn Washington has earned a big award.
On Monday, Washington was named the Big 12’s Player of the Week for the second time in her career. UT’s left fielder was recognized one week after teammate Brooke Bolinger was named the conference’s top pitcher.
During a three-game series at Iowa State, Washington went 5-for-10 with three home runs and seven RBIs. against a Red Raiders team whose .312 batting average ranks fifth nationally and whose 60 home runs are the seventh most in the country.
But the 24th-ranked Longhorns are approaching this final Big 12 road series with a profound sense of purpose, a strong dose of resiliency and some badly needed mojo, thanks to Hamilton’s heroics.
“Coach says we don’t start playing until we’re down 3-0,” Hamilton said. “Once we start pitching, we’re gonna be nasty.”
It was the perfect tonic for a Texas team that had not looked sharp on the road with two losses to lowly West Virginia that left the Longhorns a full three games behind conference-leading Oklahoma State. That said, Texas proved to itself Two of Washington’s long shots — one of which was a grand slam — were hammered during an 11-4 win on Saturday. She became the first Longhorn with a multihomer game since Lindsey Stephens in 2016.
With its sweep of Iowa State, Texas improved to 6-0 in Big 12 play.
Washington is hitting .342 this season, and she has reached base in seven straight games. That batting average ranks second among the Longhorns.
Texas (19-13) will play five times this week. After traveling to Houston on Tuesday, UT will host UT-San Antonio on Wednesday and Samford over the weekend. and any doubters that it still has enough fight to battle through, especially in the month when the best teams start to peak.
Texas is nowhere close to peaking, but knows it.
“This series gives us an opportunity for hosting (an NCAA regional),” Pierce said, “and potentially be a national seed.”
All of that could be within the reach of this club that knows it has to pitch better, especially in relief. Pierce used nine on the mound Tuesday, including former closer Beau Ridgeway, who has vanished with a loss of confidence.
He rested both Bryce Elder and Josh Sawyer during the mid-week game and says he’s prepared to use his three starters deep into games this weekend. Pierce doesn’t have staff Monday. Both she and Aston agreed the timing was perfect for the change.
“This is funny, but I was actually thinking about getting into coaching but (Aston) didn’t know that,” said Jackson, who ranks fifth in program history with 1,917 points from 2003-07.
Jackson, 33, said she planned to play one more year for the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, then retire, then open a new chapter of her life as a coach. She said she was fortunate to have played for two coaching legends — Hall of Famer Jody Conradt at Texas and her father, the late Marques Jackson, the founder and program director of Dallas Elite, considered one of the most influential girls’ basketball club programs in the nation.
When Jackson received Aston’s phone call, she answered yes without hesitation.
“For us, the timing could not have been more perfect to bring back a legend to our campus,” Aston said.
Jackson will fill Thompson’s shoes by coaching UT’s post players. She will be welcomed at practice by two posts who were named to the McDonald’s All-America Team this spring — 6-foot-5 Charli Collier of Barbers Hill and 6-7 Sedona Prince of Liberty Hill.
Jackson recalls working with Aston, who was an assistant on Conradt’s staff from 1998-2006.
“Karen actually coached the post players, if you can believe it,” Jackson said. “She was always on me the entire time. I came in here highly recruited, one of the top players in the nation, but she didn’t care about that. She wanted the best from any other choice although Nolan Kingham, Chase Shugart and Blair Henley have given him equal cause for alarm at times.
Texas doesn’t have its usual dominant ace. It certainly doesn’t have a No. 4 starter, the pitcher the team can trust to step in as needed in these final two series against Tech and TCU. The pitchers rank just 195th out of 300 teams in strikeouts per nine innings and didn’t strike out a single Texas State batter until the seventh.
Twice in Big 12 games, Kingham could go no longer than two innings and lasted just five against West Virginia. In fact, his best outing was a four-inning scoreless relief stint versus Oklahoma. Shugart was roughed up for 11 hits by the Mountaineers. Henley has allowed me and she wanted the best out of me.”
Jackson left the university as one of the most highly decorated Longhorns of all time. She ranks eighth in scoring average (15.6 ppg.), first in career free throws made (487), fifth in rebounding (8.4 rpg.), third in career steals (313) and seventh in career blocks (181).
As a professional, she played for three WNBA teams — New York (2007-10), Tulsa (2010-15) and Los Angeles (2017-18). She also played in a professional league in Israel from 2012-18. She was a forward for Maccabi Ashdod, a team that won the Israeli league championship each season she played there.
Among the interested spectators at Jackson’s introductory press conference was Sug Sutton, who is expected to replace Brooke McCarty as UT’s starting point guard next season.
“Coach K (Aston) wanted someone with experience, and Tiff is going to bring the same kind of energy that Coach T (Thompson) brought,” Sutton said. “She’s played here before, so she’ll bring that Texas type of swag to our team.”
Jackson said it will take time to adjust to her new role, but Aston is confident she’ll become a team asset. Aston noted that Thompson had little experience as a coach when she became a Texas assistant in 2015. Thompson is now the head coach at Virginia.
Conradt believes Jackson will succeed.
“She has always been very astute in basketball knowledge and skill development,” Conradt said. “And her name still carries a great deal of weight in the state of Texas.” four earned runs in three of his four starts in Big 12 play.
Texas clearly has an NCAA bid safely locked up. One mock bracket lists the Longhorns as a No. 2 seed headed West for the second time in a row in a foursome with UCLA. Texas has done its best work against the top of the Big 12, winning a series against OSU as well as fourthplace Oklahoma and fifthplace Baylor. In April, the Longhorns posted a 13-5 record and are now 24-7 at home where the Horns hope to host a regional.
“April’s actually been our best month,” Pierce said, “even though it hasn’t always been pretty. We’ve got to build on this game and have a good May.”