Reese Atwood became the third Longhorn to have a four-hit performance in a regional.
Behind 15 hits, the No. 3 Texas Longhorns only needed five innings to dispatch the Eastern Illinois Panthers 10-2 in the team’s Austin Regional opener at Red & Charline McCombs Field on Friday.
It was the eighth consecutive win in a regional for Texas.
Junior catcher Reese Atwood led the way for the Longhorns, going 4-for-4 for five RBI, becoming the third Texas player to record four hits in a regional. Redshirt junior right fielder Ashton maloney added three hits, scored two runs, and had an RBI.
“The at bats by the whole team today were great. It just shows that the hard week of practice that we had this week really paid off. I’m just really proud of the team for battling in the heat and finding a way to come out and put up that many hits and runs against two pretty solid arms. It was definitely good to have our offense back on after the SEC Tournament. We are sparking at the right time, so it’s definitely good to see that,” Atwood said.
The Longhorns responded to a run scored by the Panthers in the first inning by scoring four runs on four hits in the bottom of the frame, highlighted by a double from graduate first baseman Joley Mitchell.
In the fourth, Texas added two more runs before putting the game away with four runs in the fifth on RBI doubles from Maloney and Atwood, who drove in three runs on an opposite-field double
“We fell behind 1-0 but were able to bounce back with four runs in the first straight away and really took the momentum out of their sails a little bit. Citlaly (Gutierrez) came out and pitched pretty well to start with and then we made the change to bring in Cambria (Salmon) and she did a good job for us and finished it off. We did a good job of hitting the ball hard and driving in some runs late. Obviously, we left a couple of runners on base, so that’s still something we need to work on,” Texas head coach Mike White said.
In pitching the final three innings, freshman right-hander Cambria Salmon earned her seventh win of the season, allowing one run on two hits.
Texas will face Michigan on Saturday at noon Central on ESPN after the Wolverines scored three runs in the fifth inning on Friday to overcome the UCF Knights.
