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May 6, 2025 • 11 mins
Mike White joins the program as Texas Softball is set to play in its inaugural SEC postseason tournament on Thursday. Coach White and Craig discuss the end of the regular-season for the Texas Longhorns, their potential match-ups in the SEC Tournament, and the outstanding play of Mia Scott, Reese Atwood, and others.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's postseason time for collegiate softball, and that means it's
postseason time for the Texas Longhorns SEC tournament time, getting
ready to play in their first ever SEC softball tournament
at Jack Turner Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Now that'll be
coming up on Thursday. The Longhorns will head over there
tomorrow to get ready. We're pleased to have joining us

(00:21):
on the hotline right now, and they head coach of
the Longhorns, Mike White, has joined us, and Mike, I
appreciate the time. And after the Noah's ArcLight conditions of
the morning, with all of that out of the way,
where was your group able to get in some work
even indoors before you know, getting ready to head out
to Georgia tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yes, so well Fortuly. Fortunately we're able to get in
yesterday morning before the monsoon started, and then this morning
we were in the bubble and then finished up on
our indoor facilities, so we're able to get some pretty
good practice time in, so you know, we're ready to
go excellent.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
How would you describe I mean, your your team is
no law longer anea fight so to speak in the SEC.
If you've been through an entire regular season. Now, it's
just like when coaches say that freshmen aren't freshmen anymore
by the time you get to the end of the
freshman year. All that said, do you get a sense
of excitement from your group? I mean, anytime you get
in the tournament play, I'm sure there's excitement, but the

(01:17):
fact that this is their first ever fora into the
SEC tournament, you get that kind of sense from them,
the excitement of participating in this event for the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, definitely. I mean it's almost like a many college
World Series. You know, this ESPN's president and there's a
lot of media and you know, the same kind of
stuff that goes on in the College World Series. So
it's a great opportunity to pray people on and hopefully
for a postseason run and we'll get ready and get
back to thereto Oklahma City.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, and one of the things, yeah, and I guess
that's that's the nice into the road thing for folks
who might have missed your team or will miss out
on seeing them, like in Oklahoma City during conference tournament play,
there's always that light at the end of the tunnel
that carrot there to get a chance to play there
anyway for the for the national in the Women's.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
College World Series.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Let me start with how you feel about your group
now coming off the sweep of Kentucky, getting through the
weekend after a grinder of an SEC schedule. How do
you feel about your group right now and the way
they're playing as you head on into the conference tournament.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, the three weeks here we were in l s U,
Tennessee and Oklahoma, there was that was a tough stretch
that was like a goolant there of the you know,
three of the top teams in the conference and kind
of beat us up a little bit. You know, we
took a took a sweep there at Oklahoma and we
split that. We won the series against LSU in Tennessee.
So it was difficult, but I think we learned a
lot and we're able to kind of reset a little

(02:44):
bit against against Kentucky and loot some stuff and hopefully
we can come out and play relaxed, to play aggressive
type softball. I think they let let things get away
from us a little bit there. I gave up too
many runs on the pitching stuff, and hopefully we can
do a lot better going into this tournament.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Well, one of those players who seems to be playing
really loose for you and free and easy, and we
saw it when she was a freshman. But how about
Katie Stewart and the things she's done. She's the SEC
player of the Week, the player of the Week for
the NFCA. What do you seeing from her that has
her really just on fire of late?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, we saw that about two or three weeks ago.
She started to get a lot more confident. She was
down on herself there. We moved her down the line
up from fifth behind at what into the sixth position,
just to take a little bit of pressure off and
and now she started to really bounce back and like
what she's at behind Reese. It takes Reese quite a
bit and she's coming into her own and she's really
swinging the bat well and that gets us pretty excited.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Mike, do you see that as one of the challenges
of coaching is not only for a head coach, but
for assistant coaches, for any of your other group, for
Steve Singleton or Kristin Zeleski or Patti rut Taylor, any
of your other members of your coaching staff. When you're
working with someone in trying to get them to get

(04:01):
the performance level up, and sometimes it necessitates a move
down in the lineup, some coaches up in the lineup,
depending on where you wanted him. For them to understand,
it's not a punitive thing, but it's a thing that's
going to help out not only the kid, but it's
certainly going to help out the team in the short term,
if not also for the long term.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, exactly, everything is based around the team. We tell
them that it's not a personal decision, you know, even
though it may seem like it at times, but certainly
not punishment. It's just you know, just to kind of
maybe get your relaxed and reset and get to get
your your mind back to where it needs to be.
And fortunately, you know, we haven't had made too many
changes at the top of the lineup. You know, the
top four kind of stayed the same. It's just the

(04:41):
bottom hop there. We've got to kind of mix and
match just a little bit, and you kind of go
with your gut feeling and you kind of, you know,
play some players and certain positions depending on the pitching
that you're facing. But fortunately the top four have been
really pretty steady.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, well, I was going to ask you to talk
about those top four, but before I get you to
dive into that, I'm curious to get I heard it,
saw a couple of the sound bites with Mia Scott
playing all of the positions. Baseball did that several years
ago where they had a guy named Jake McKenzie who
did all nine one night, but that was a non
conference game on a Tuesday night against I think U

(05:15):
t R g V. And things were gonna be well
in place on I mean, you're doing that or she's
doing that in the in the down the stretch of
a conference regular season. How did that whole thing generate
into all of a sudden, here's me of playing every
position on the field.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, well me has always kind of joked about wanting
to pitch, and she wanted to catch, and she wanted
to do these different things. So I was like, okay, Kiffle,
what you mentioned, we're going to put you into it,
so it's not off. We said, let's go, you know,
see what you got and you put your money in
the mouth this kind of thing, and uh, you know,
I didn't know much about it until we started actually
the game, so it was kind of kept for me,
but coach Olisky was the one behind it a lot

(05:53):
of it, and so it just evolved into his own
little beast there and unfortunately we're able to do it.
And you know, the game stim in something because I
mean difference between third and fourth place and who we played,
you know, in the in the matchups on Thursday, so
you know, it didn't mean something. But she was able
to kind of come through it unscathed and were able
to win the game with some comfort in you know,

(06:15):
with the rhymes. We scored, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
This is when Mike White, Texas Softball coaching for a
few more minutes. Mike, let me get you to give
a little detail what you were talking about with regard
to the pitching, because for a lot of the season
had been really really good and then there was a
struggle or too and a stumble or two down the stretch.
Was it anything acutely identifiable that that you could see

(06:38):
and and how did you and the staff call about
addressing it with your staff to try to get things
turned and flipped back around.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I mean it's it's sometimes you're going, you know,
is this a physical thing or does a mental saying
and you kind of like bouncing different stuff around, trying
to figure it all out. And you know, so I
think it was a combination. You know, there was some
physical things that we looked at, you know, some some
stuff that Tigan was doing, you know, and then also
just getting behind just walking too many batters. You're putting
a lot more pressure on yourself. And you know, the

(07:09):
zones are pretty tight. You know, they've shrunk a little
bit in the SEC for sure, and then coming into
the postseason, so just adjustments we had to make. I
like where Tigan's at right now, and you know this
this is the one we need. We need Teagan to
be firing and all cylinders.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Absolutely, And is that also something too that you've noticed
And I'm I'm speaking about this from the perspective of
somebody who just called three games in Arkansas of the
weekend that saw the pitching staff issue thirty one free passes.
There were twenty two walks and nine hit batters. So
I so, so I'm I'm hearing exactly what you're saying.

(07:47):
And in the case of some of those one thing
that coach Los Neagle talked about and Max Weener, the
pitching coaches guys just trying to be too fine sometimes
instead of just cutting loose and doing what they do best.
Was there some of that also, not only fatiguing, but
with the rest of the staff.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, No, definitely. We're taught them about, you know, perfect
pitching that can really cause you some issues. You're trying
to be perfect all the time, and you know, good
hitters are good at not swinging that stuff and straightening
the stark zone. So you're really got to trust your
stuff and attack. And you know, the number of pitches
we were thrown, we give them even better looks at us,
you know, So it's kind of like a catch twenty two.
You've got to really kind of like take your chances

(08:23):
and say I'd rather get you earlier than later. So
it's definitely something we learn from and something we're told
Tatigan and the rest and stuff about as well.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Uh, let me get your thoughts now on this SEC tournament.
You're not going to play until Thursday, and and not
yet sure who it is you'd be playing. It could
be uh, you know two of the two teams is
that that start their game this afternoon, Missouri and Old
miss It could be Florida, obviously waiting on the winner
of that, you get the double buys as well. How

(08:51):
about the challenges for you and for your staff. Uh,
there's the benefit of the double buy and you're started
in the quarterfinals. But by the same token, there's a
lot to examine in terms of those teams. How much
does the familiarity of playing those teams during the season
help shorten the curve a little bit there?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, it certainly helps with out of doubt. Obviously we
haven't played Old Miss, but we've we've played the other two,
so that kind of makes it a little bit easier.
But then you get into the semis and it could
be taxsas A and M and could be on and
so it could be any number of the teams that
we that we haven't played, you know. So it's like
one of those deal. You know, you kind of take
fifteen folders with the mb paid, so some of it

(09:29):
we's got to kind of wing it, you know, and
just do the best we can. Yeah, no doubt about now.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
For folks who fans who are interested in how a
team goes about the on site preparation, you travel tomorrow
and of course you wouldn't play till Thursday, and how
much of what you have to do in terms of
your off site prep before you get into the stadium itself,
plus the scouting that goes on, Just to give long
warn fans a little bit of an idea how all

(09:55):
of that works for you and for your staff as
well as for the team as you travel tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, it's actually it's quite difficult because we're staying over
an hour away because you know, obviously we didn't know
about it till late and you know, it's a graduation
weekend out there, and you know, in Athens, and so
all the hotels rooms are booked up, so the closest
we get was over an hour away. So and then
we we can't get to practice on that the actual
Athens field, so that we've got to practice on another

(10:20):
high school field. So we've got that organized. So you know,
it's really kind of going into that game against you know,
who we play, it is going to be a little
bit cold, playing on a new, new surface and new area,
so you know, that's what we've got to look at. Fortunately,
we've got some software programs where we can scout teams,
and obviously we'll be watching TV this afternoon and then
obviously tomorrow if we have an opportunity to watch those

(10:43):
games going on and pick up some stuff from that.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Depending on the matchups and what has happened and who
you might match up with. Does that also affect on
how you want to set up your pitching for this
or is it just starting with teaging and seeing where
it carries you.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know, we haven't made that decision yet, but it
could depend on who we have come through. I know,
Mac Morgan's pitch pretty well against Florida, you know, so
that could be a choice we have with Florida comes through,
you know, almost hasn't seen any of us right now,
We've got to look at your hitters a little bit more. Obviously,
we played Missouri and we were able to do a
pretty good job against Sam sit Riley did well against Stem.

(11:21):
So some of it could depend on who comes through
that side of the bracket.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
All right, Hey, Mike, I really appreciate you taking the time.
I know it's a busy time. Glad you you were
in your group were able to get dried out a
little bit and then get ready to get on the
plane tomorrow to go to Georgia, and uh, we wish
you all the best luck. We're looking forward to having
Andrew Haynes bring everybody the broadcast live here on the
Zone on Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
I appreciate you taking the time. Oh thanks great. We
appreciate you. And Andrew does a great job. So and
holcome
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