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Softball preview: North Texas and Texas State · Complete notes [PDF] No. 2 Texas (24-1) vs. North Texas (9-8) Wednesday, March 8 -- 5/7 p.m. McCombs Field -- Austin, Texas Live Internet Video: Watch on subscription-based TexasSports.TV Live Internet Radio: Listen on subscription-based Yahoo! Sports Live Stats: Click here for live stats No. 2 Texas (24-1) vs. Texas State (10-10) Thursday, March 9 -- 6 p.m. Bobcat Field -- San Marcos, Texas Live Stats: Click here for live stats AUSTIN, Texas -- Last week, the second-ranked Texas Softball team went 7-0, winning the Time Warner Cable Texas Invitational and extended its overall winning streak to 22 games, a program record. This week, the Longhorns (24-1) will play their final three games before heading to California for Spring Break and the Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton. On Wednesday, UT hosts North Texas in a 5 p.m. doubleheader at McCombs Field before playing a single game at Texas State on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Bobcat Field in San Marcos. Last weekend, Desiree Williams, Chez Sievers, Tina Boutelle and Shannon Thomas highlighted the Horns' offense. Each player hit .333 or better with Williams leading all players at the event with a .583 average. Sievers hit .500 and collected hits in all four games she played, while Boutelle (.353, three RBI) and Thomas (.333, six runs) consistently got on base at the top of the order, creating chances for the Horns. UT's pitchers - Cat Osterman (3-0, 0.00 ERA, 37 strikeouts) and Meagan Denny (2-0, 0.38 ERA, 31 strikeouts) - led the Horns to the five-game sweep at the tournament, each also individually accumulating more strikeouts than any of the three teams in Austin for the weekend. The 5-0 mark at the tournament pushed the Horns' winning streak to 22 games, the program's longest ever and the best mark currently in the nation. The tournament title marked the second consecutive time UT has won its own tournament. The Mean Green (9-8) enter Wednesday's series having won their last two games - a doubleheader sweep of Louisiana-Monroe last Wednesday. North Texas has won six of its last nine. On the season, the Mean Green are hitting .239, led by Susan Waters' .368 mark. The third baseman is one of six players who have started all 17 games this season. A total of four players - three regulars - are hitting .300 or better and the team averages 4.11 runs per game. In the circle, Kristina Fowler and Jessica Smith have split the duties, with Fowler holding a 7-3 record and 3.57 ERA in 66.2 innings. She has recorded 52 strikeouts and 34 walks while allowing 43 runs - 34 earned - this season. She has one shutout, a no-hitter against ULM last week. Smith has a 3.82 ERA to go with her 2-5 record in 44.0 innings. Texas is 2-0 all-time against North Texas, winning both games of a doubleheader (4-1 and 2-0) at McCombs Field on March 23, 2005. The two teams were scheduled to play each other in a doubleheader in 2004 - the first year of UNT's return after a 16-year hiatus - but rain in the Austin area forced the cancellation of the series. Texas State (10-10 entering its doubleheader against College of Charleston on Tuesday) and Texas will square off in the first of two regular-season meetings on Thursday. The single game in San Marcos counters the single game scheduled for April 12 in Austin. The Bobcats enter their Tuesday doubleheader having lost their last five games, including four one-run defeats. In fact, eight of the team's 10 losses have been by a single run. Texas and Texas State have a long history for non-conference foes, facing each other 23 times in the Horns' 10-year history. The Longhorns hold a 19-4 advantage in the overall series, including wins in each of the last three meetings. Last season, Texas won, 4-0 and 2-0, in the teams' doubleheader in San Marcos. Texas is 7-1 in games played at the Bobcats' stadium. In the first game, Osterman threw her first perfect game of the year while Chez Sievers had three RBI including her only home run of the 2005 season. In the nightcap, Denny got her second shutout of the season - her second one-hitter in as many starts - with 15 strikeouts, while Jacqueline Williams had the game-winning RBI single in the fourth inning. With the conclusion of the Horns' game at Texas State on Thursday - closing a span 28 games in 28 days - the team will take a week off before heading to California for the annual Judi Garman Classic, renamed from the Kia Klassic this season, hosted by Cal State Fullerton, Wednesday-Sunday, March 15-19. Texas is slated to play Washington, Louisiana-Lafayette and defending national champion Michigan (ranked 15, 12 and 9, respectively) in pool play before breaking into bracket play. Live stats for all three games this week will be available at TexasSports.com, and both live video and audio broadcasts will be available at the TexasSports.com through subscription packages.

how can they be expected to watch football when they cant even fit in the building?? (my best zoolander face)

Amon Carter is definitly my favorite Mid Major stadium.

with as fast as this years DB class looked at the combine, he doesnt really have a legitimate shot. maybe at the CFL or NFLE, but not at the big show. there are going to be DB's who run 4.3's that go in the first round of cuts this year.

it makes me wonder how much he we not helped by his agent. VY was smart enough to run a pretty complicated offense to perection at UT. I doubt he is a dumb person.

according to my nifty UNT calender, we have won 4 NCAA titles in golf. good thing we quit taking care of that golf course that we bought last year. it would be hard to win another with somewhere to practice.

woo hoo!!! we passed!!!!!!!

Now here is shocking news, ranking right up there with religious strife in the Middle East for sheer unexpectedness: The NCAA's new Academic Progress Rates benefit the big-time schools and hurt the small timers. That's the primary conclusion that can be drawn from the report released Wednesday. (There is no truth to the rumor that the letterhead on the report read, "NCAA: Of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.") The report trumpets the fact that less than 2 percent of NCAA sports teams nationwide will be penalized with scholarship reductions for poor academic performance. That's swell. But look at the list of Division I schools that will be penalized and see if you notice a trend: Football: Temple, Toledo, Middle Tennessee State, Western Michigan, Buffalo, New Mexico State, Northern Illinois, Hawaii. See any Rose Bowl contenders in that group? Basketball: Cal Poly, Centenary, East Carolina, Hampton, Jacksonville, Kent State, New Mexico State, South Carolina State, Texas State, Maryland Eastern Shore, DePaul, Florida A&M, Prairie View, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Sacramento State. See any programs that will find this report a distraction on the way to the Final Four? This is a little like the old 1980s compliance joke, "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky, it's going to give Cleveland State three more years' probation." Here, we see that the NCAA is so serious about academic reform, it's going to take scholarships away from the dregs of Division I. Take that, Sac State! There is exactly one school on this list that is a member of one of the six power conferences in Division I sports. (Paging the academic counselors at DePaul. Do you know where your basketball players are?) Everyone else belongs to a shoestring budget league. On the football list, the schools are either members of the Mid-American Conference (Western Michigan, Toledo, Buffalo, Northern Illinois and, starting next year, Temple), the Western Athletic Conference (New Mexico State, Hawaii), or the Sun Belt (Middle Tennessee State). Those happen to be the bottom three leagues in the Sagarin Ratings for 2005. On the basketball side we have schools from the Big West, Mid-Continent, Conference USA, Mid-Eastern Atlantic, Big East, Atlantic Sun, MAC, WAC, Southland, SWAC and Sun Belt. Most of those leagues rank among the bottom half of America according to the current conference RPI, and many rank among the bottom third. The Big East is the only league among the top eight. If this trend persists, it will only deepen the caste system in college athletics. Hopefully, the NCAA will study this data and make some determinations about the apparent academic disparity between castes. Here's one wild guess as to a root cause: Money. After one glance at the athletic operating budgets for the Dumb Two Dozen, I'm seeing red. Red ink. Everywhere. According to 2003-04 figures from the Chronicle of Higher Education, almost all these schools are losing millions of dollars on athletics. Toledo: $8 million in the hole. Kent State: $7.9 million. Western Michigan: $7.2 million Northern Illinois: $6.2 million. Texas State: $4.1 million. New Mexico State: $4 million. And so forth. There are some among the these two-dozen schools who say they're breaking even or turning a small profit, but you wonder how they balance their books. Is it really possible that Temple took in $17.9 million in revenues in 2003-04, while spending that exact same amount? Now compare those figures with, say, Tennessee. The Volunteers' operating budget for '03-04 shows $62 million in revenue (more than 20 times what Western Michigan pulled in) and $31 million in expenses. Do you think it's any coincidence that Tennessee put out a release Wednesday afternoon trumpeting its success in the APR? Read the release and you'll see that much credit is given to the work done at the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center, which is the athletic department's academic support fiefdom. The building is named for John "Thunder" Thornton, an influential Tennessee booster who helped bankroll the project. Tennessee's athletic Web site lists 17 individuals who work at or with the Thornton Center -- not including tutors -- all dedicated to the academic advancement of Big Orange athletes. There are five academic counselors devoted to individual sports -- including one whose sole focus is the Volunteers football team. (Except for walk-ons. They report to someone else.) What the have-nots wouldn't give to have a little Thunder on their side. So here is the Catch-22 the NCAA presents to its smaller, weaker members: You're competing against schools with 20 times the dollars and manpower that you have -- and if you don't keep up with them academically, we're going to take away scholarships and make it even harder to compete athletically. Go get 'em. It should be said that this issue cuts both ways. If some of the lesser schools were more realistic about their place in college athletics, they wouldn't be in this predicament. I'd love to have someone show me the payoff for moving up to Division I-A football at Louisiana-Lafayette ($3.1 million in the red in 2003-04) and Louisiana-Monroe ($2 million in the red). They haven't even made it to the Sun Belt's sole postseason tie-in, the New Orleans Bowl. If more of these schools knew their true place in the college sports hierarchy, the budget problem might not be so pronounced. And there might be more in the coffers to pay for academic support. I'm all for rigorous academic standards for college athletic departments, but every NCAA good intention is infamously followed by the curse of unintended consequences. A couple of ripples we need to be aware of in this case: • Athletic departments will have (even more) incentive to do work for their athletes, guide them to bunny classes or pressure professors to help jocks get by. (And don't even suggest it doesn't happen from coast to coast.) Too many athletes are often given grades in high school and prep school just to get to college, which makes it unrealistic to believe they'll suddenly be able (and willing) to do the work on the college level. • There is an obvious gap between the academic success and support between the high end and low end of Division I. And taking away scholarships from the little guys only deepens the caste system. If the NCAA wants to make us believe it really cares about the little guys, it will look into why the APR only targets its have-nots.

GGII came back..... I never saw that coming

The UNT women won the team title last season and were picked by the league’s coaches to repeat, but finished second behind Western Kentucky. “It was a little disappointing because we went down there to win,” Watkins said. “It took a great performance in the finals to win and Western Kentucky had a great performance.” its nice to see a team set those kind of expectations.

I would buy one for my wife.

I hate to admit it, but I dont know anything about our strength and conditioning coach. maybe improving that position would be a great way to end our injury problems. it would definitly change all of those 3-7 point losses to 3-7 point wins. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/stor...ivan&id=2341786

its hard to talk smack after a last place in the subelt finish. though in my heart I belive that we will return to our rightful spot atop this league

I belive it is pronounced Arnell (the D is silent according to my aTm freinds)

I am going to buy slim some drinks so he doesnt skip town.

maybe they should change their mascot.

we just got a softball team and we dont have a baseball team yet. I am just happy that we are getting some of this stuff.

sit him down and rest him.

"That's mental toughness right there," Patterson said. "It's really not made to condition you. It's to prepare you mentally to get stronger, to work through it when you get tired." http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/stor...ivan&id=2337371

perhaps

"Kerona Henderson was his usual battering ram self. He spent the whole practice dealing out punishment and make me glad that it wasn't me trying to tackle him. I hope that the coaching staff has some FB running plays in their play book. This guy could keep a defense honest with a few runs up the middle every game. " I think thats what we have really been missing. more runs up the middle.

what a great story about a great athelete. she really passed up baylor and Miami to come to UNT? both of those schools have some of the best track and field programs in the nation.

I think that Avery Jhonson is doing wonderful things there. having said that, no one can beat the Spurs in a series. they have the best player in basketball and a good supporting cast

that does seem really skinny for someone that tall.