After a week of traversing the state of Florida, the No. 22 Texas A&M softball team will return to Texas, although the team will not be as close to College Station as it might like. The Aggies (20-10) will travel to Lubbock today to take on the Lady Red Raiders of Texas Tech (13-23) in a doubleheader.
The Aggies completed their tour of Florida last week with a 4-3 overall record after competing in the Democrat Invitational in Tallahassee and the Blue and Gold Classic in Miami.
In the Democrat Invitational, A&M took on Georgia State University, the University of Iowa and Florida A&M University. The Aggies managed to get past Georgia State 5-0 and defeat Florida A&M 9-1. They were not able to complete the clean sweep in pool play, however, as the Iowa Hawkeyes blanked the Ags 3-0. The elements then kept the Aggies from completing the tournament, as their last game was rained out before they moved on to Miami.
After arriving in Miami, A&M faced another slew of teams, beginning with the University of Massachusetts and host team Florida International on Friday. The Aggies fought hard but lost both Friday games to UMass and Florida International, 4-2 and 3-2, respectively. However, as the weekend wore on, A&M righted the ship by routing Florida Atlantic 10-2 and beating Syracuse 9-5.
Meanwhile, Texas Tech went on a road trip of its own, competing in the 2003 Hokie Fastpitch Club Classic. On the tournament’s first day, the North Carolina Tarheels downed the Lady Red Raiders 2-1, but Tech rebounded quickly, pummeling Georgia State, 10-0. In the second day of the tournament, the Lady Red Raiders dropped a pair of games to Coastal Carolina University and St. Bonaventure University.
Although they did not do as well as they would have liked, Texas Tech Head Coach Bobby Reeves said there is no time to dwell on their losses.
“By hosting A&M, we are expecting a great team to come in,” he said. “The Big 12 is probably the toughest conference because everybody can play. (A&M Head Coach Jo Evans) has done a great job, and we know that we need to be mentally prepared to face A&M.”
“They’ve really turned things around, and they are having a lot better year this year after struggling last year,” Evans said. “These conference games are very important to us, and we would like to get off to a 2-0 start going into this weekend against No. 3 Nebraska. Our kids played well and hit well in the last two games, and hopefully we’ll keep that going.”
While Tech is young, it is certainly not a team lacking firepower.
Freshman third baseman Arlene Newton leads the Lady Red Raiders with a scorching .327 batting average. To counter this threat, the Aggies will
likely depend on strong defense from junior pitcher Lindsay Wilhelmson, who got her 10th win after coming on in relief against Syracuse.
After they finish the doubleheader against Tech, the Aggies will return to College Station from a near month-long hiatus to face the No. 3 Nebraska Cornhuskers in a two game series this weekend.