Bohls: All that glitters was golden for Texas softball during its NCAA rout of Texas A&M

Just in case Texas didn’t already have enough motivation for Sunday’s NCAA softball regional final, Bella Dayton made sure with an idea she came up with the night before.

All glitter all the time.

The junior center fielder texted her Longhorns teammates and emphatically suggested they all show up at McCombs Field with glitter on their faces, in their hair and everywhere.

Game faces and all.

All that glitters was gold on a drizzly, overcast afternoon as it turned out because Dayton and her teammates shone brightly in an 11-5 romp over Texas A&M before a full house that sewed up the regional and sends the No. 8 Longhorns to the Knoxville Super Regional this weekend against Tennessee.

Texas downright sparkled with a three-game sweep in its regional, including back-to-back victories over the nemesis Aggies in front of 1,663 fans and a big showing from maroon fans who couldn’t help themselves and regularly flashed the inverted Horns sign without much to show for it.

“Yeah, Bella texted us all last night,” freshman catcher Reese Atwood said, offering very few specifics. “She was pumped up about the game and the Texas A&M players.”

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The shimmer didn’t wear off at all for this team rounding into form and peaking at just the right time.

The Longhorns came out aglow and put up a 4-spot in the first inning behind Courtney Day’s two-run double and another two runs in the second to put extreme pressure on their old rivals. Day finished up her eye-popping five-RBIs performance with a bases-clearing double in the fifth to put Texas up 10-2.

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“Courtney Day had a day,” beamed Longhorns head coach Mike White, who was rewarded by his decision to bump her up to fourth in the batting order.

White loved seeing the early explosion by his offense because it eased his nerves “a lot.”

As much as he relished the tight bond and chemistry of his fifth Texas team, he didn’t necessarily buy in totally to Dayton’s schtick.

“Yeah, they tried to get me to put some glitter in my mustache,” White said, laughing, “but I told them that’s not going to work.”

Everything else did, however.

This year's team out to match last year's magic

Last year’s team shocked the world as an unseeded bunch, finishing as the Women’s College World Series runner-up to maybe the best softball team in history in Oklahoma.

Just to get to Oklahoma City, where it knocked off UCLA and Oklahoma State, was an achievement in itself since Texas had to win both a regional and super regional on the road, even after losing a game to host Washington in the first round and to Arkansas the next one.

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This crew may be on the verge of duplicating that magic, its 13th seed notwithstanding. No one should sleep on this 45-13-1 club, which has reached the super-regional round for the third time in a row and the fourth time in five seasons under White. He’d have probably been perfect but for the COVID-interrupted year when the Horns were 24-3.

'There's always been a beef between these two teams'

Playing A&M, of course, gave the atmosphere some extra flavor. Taunting between fans was raised to an art form, and one Aggies assistant coach was ejected for protesting the overall tenor of the calls.

“I think you felt the tension,” White said. “I felt Oklahoma and Oklahoma State’s fans were rough. … But we kept our composure.”

In the two games versus the Aggies, the Longhorns trailed for exactly half an inning on Saturday. Behind 1-0 in the third, Texas rallied for the only two runs it would need on Dayton’s RBI fielder’s choice grounder and an A&M throwing error.

“I love it,” Atwood said of the rivalry. “I loved hearing all the fans behind me. ”

Chimed in Day, “It’s fun playing in a rivalry game. There’s always been a beef between these two teams.”

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'It's awesome to play on the big stage'

But this is a balanced Texas team that can win in a variety of ways. It can win a pitcher’s duel with A&M one game with only four hits and blow out the Aggies pitching with 10 hits in the next. It committed just one error in three regional games and fielded at a championship-level .988.

Texas doesn’t have the dominant strikeout pitching of ace Hailey Dolcini or the star power of four-time All-American second baseman Janae Jefferson from last season. But it’s got a double-barreled offense that ranks fifth nationally at .330, some wise-beyond-their-years freshmen at five different positions and solid pitching from No. 1 starter and Sunday’s winning pitcher Mac Morgan (18-3) and freshman Citlaly Gutierrez as well as relievers Estelle Czech and Sophia Simpson.

Texas may be young, but none of the freshmen seem overwhelmed by the moment.

Atwood caught every pitch of the regional, threw out a key baserunner in Saturday's win over A&M and had two hits to go with a big sacrifice fly that built the hosts’ 6-1 cushion Sunday.

“It’s awesome to play on the big stage,” Atwood said. “I think we’re looking good, and I have to compliment the chemistry on this team and the energy.”

Ashton Maloney, a redshirt freshman from Liberty, Mo., had three hits in the two Aggie games and a pair of RBIs. Rookie shortstop Viviana Martinez drove in three runs in Texas’ 8-0 run-rule victory over Seton Hall in the regional opener and had a stretch of 12 consecutive games without an error this season.

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“We are a different team this year,” White said. “We’re more based on gap-to-gap (hitting) but we’ve had some home runs. We’ve balanced stuff out.”

And stayed balanced. Eight Longhorns had a hit Sunday. Four drove in a run.

The emotions ran hot but never got the best of this young team and doesn’t figure to at this point in the season. That’s saying something because it was especially dramatic with the renewal of this special rivalry between the Longhorns and Aggies.

Heck, two of A&M’s players, Bre Warren and Star Ferguson, are daughters of former Aggies football stars Ty Warren and Robert Ferguson, who were on hand. A&M coach Trisha Ford is only in her first year at College Station after arriving from Arizona State, but she’s been there long enough to know the depths of feelings. She said she loved the feisty atmosphere and couldn’t help but look ahead a bit.

“When y’all come over to Davis Diamond, it’ll be spicy,” Ford promised. “But that’s what it’s all about. I’d play in this environment all the time.”

So could White see this, uh, develop into a rivalry, you know, once Texas joins the SEC next summer?

“Develop?” White played along. “It’s right there.”

And so are the Horns, back in the thick of the postseason as usual.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: The 13th-seeded Texas softball team beat Texas A&M twice to advance