GOLDEN GAME
Atwood has been Texas’ alpha hitter this season
Mike White has an affectionate tag for arguably his best player.
“I call her our golden retriever,” the Texas head softball coach said of Reese Atwood, his cleanup hitter. “She’s a big puppy.”
Well, maybe she’s a dog all right. But an alpha dog. With a big bite.
Atwood just might be all that and more as the top weapon on a powerful and very likely consensus No. 1 team in the nation that’s 35-6 and coming off a three-game sweep of No. 24 Baylor. She had another impressive performance Sunday to help catapult the Longhorns to a 9-5 win and their third three-game sweep in Big 12 play, this one against overmatched Baylor to repay the favor from the Bears a year ago.
“What a magical start for her,” White gushed. “And when she wasn’t hitting as well, she was still getting singles and RBIs.”
‘Softball means everything to me’
Not real sure when she wasn’t hitting all that well because she left McCombs Field on a sun-scorched day with a robust .406 batting average, bettered only by teammate Ashton Maloney and her hefty .453. Not that Atwood’s all that interested in chatting about her statistics.
Is she into Instagram and Facebook? “I’m not big on social media,” the 6-foot blonde said.
She have any NIL deals? “A few,” she offered.
Any hobbies? “No, sir.”
And she’s anything but passive on the softball diamond, where she’s threatening all kinds of records.
“Softball means everything to me,” she said. “I’m just passionate about the game.”
Reese Atwood has come a long way in a short time
She has been since she started smashing softballs in T-ball at age 6.
Does she consider herself a home run hitter at heart?
“I think so,” Atwood said. “But I have my ups and downs.”
Very few downs.
Her heroics, including a 3-for-3 day at the plate Sunday with a towering, two-run home run and four RBIs, helped Texas win 9-5 for its sixth straight victory and stay within a game in the Big 12 of nemesis and three-time defending national champion Oklahoma.
Two weeks ago, the Longhorns got
the better of the Sooners, toppling them two out of three and ending their 40game Big 12 win streak. Even more impressive was the fact that Texas held OU to seven runs in three games.
“I don’t know of too many people who have done that,” White said. “That was an important series, but they’re all important,” White said. “You can see the talent we have on this team. Our volume of work is starting to show.”
No one’s more obviously a top-shelf talent than Atwood, the Longhorns diehard from the Corpus Christi area who was one of White’s easiest recruits. She was a late bloomer but, once she committed to Texas, she “tore the cover off the ball the following year” and hasn’t slowed down yet.
Now two years into her college career, she’s as critical a cog in this Texas lineup as anyone because she gives her team a much-needed power stroke that’s essential, given the plethora of long-ball hitters Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have. Texas has hit a respectable 47 balls out of the park, 13 of them off Atwood’s bat, but OU’s lineup has clubbed 83 and Oklahoma State has 62. The Sooners average 2.08 homers a game — third best in the nation — while the Cowgirls knock 1.55 balls out of the park on average and Longhorns just 1.16.
Something about getting a lot of runs in a hurry can really fuel a team.
That disparity, along with OU’s superior defense with its nation-best .987 fielding average, also gives it some separation from Texas, which has made 40 errors to OU’s 13. OSU has committed just 23.
“They’re still the team to beat,” White said of OU. “They’ve got more power and more experience with 10 seniors and grad transfers. They’re very dangerous.”
Chasing Texas’ top hitting records
The Longhorns’ miscues make for longer innings and more stress on their deep stable of pitchers. White does concede that his young team, with only two regular seniors in the lineup, can be guilty of “freshman moments” in the field like sophomore Viviana Martinez’s two-run error in the last inning Sunday.
“The tougher the play, the better they make it,” White said of his fielders like crackerjack glove Alyssa Washington at second base. “They have stepped up and made the big plays.”
Atwood’s a fine defensive catcher as well, someone Longhorns pitcher Mac Morgan raves about.
“Reese is a good player, and she’s someone I’ll always want on my team,” said Morgan, who threw four innings of hitless, scoreless softball until Baylor’s two-run seventh narrowed the gap Sunday. “She’s got a good arm behind the plate, and she knows how to calm me down. She’ll come out to the mound and make me laugh.”
Usually she just makes them proud. Atwood’s 13 home runs, counting the mammoth, two-run shot over the left field wall at McCombs, leads the Longhorns and ranks fourth in the Big 12 behind league leaders Tiare Jennings of Oklahoma and Caroline Wang of OSU and their 16 homers apiece and OU’s Alyssa Brito’s 15.
Atwood is also in striking distance of the single-season school mark of 18 set by slugging third baseman Taylor Hoagland in 2012, and Atwood’s 61 RBIs bring her within five of the season record of 66 established by Lindsey Stephens in 2014 and Taylor Thom in 2013.
Without her, the leading Longhorns power stroke comes from Washington with her seven dingers and talented freshmen Kayden Henry and Katie Stewart, who have six apiece.
An unlikely power hitter, yet a big one
Atwood’s tall, slender frame doesn’t typically represent the most likely stereotype of home run hitters, but she uses her leverage and work ethic in the weight room to strengthen her core. That and her ability to get to the ball quickly have groomed her into one of college softball’s premier home run hitters.
“She doesn’t have that girth,” White said. “Doesn’t have the size or stockiness.”
But as Morgan reminds, “She’s skinny, but she’s strong. I’ve seen her golf one out this far off the ground (at her ankles).”
Texas has been through a grueling stretch with 10 consecutive games against ranked opponents and has only 10 more games left in the regular season.
“We haven’t won anything yet,” White said. “But a top eight seed is on the table, and we’re still there.”
With Reese Atwood leading the way.