The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Forty Acres Insider: May 20
05.20.2025 | Forty Acres Insider
Important news happening in and around Texas Athletics compiled by Vice President and Athletics Director Chris Del Conte. [<a href="http://texassports.com/archives.aspx?path=forty_acres_insider">Forty Acres Insider archives</a>]
Longhorn Nation,
Yes indeed folks, it may sound like a broken record to fans of other programs (or any haters out there, ha!), but I know it's music to our ears — WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS … AGAIN! Light the Tower Orange, in our SEC debut and inaugural year of the Coach Schloss era, Baseball is the outright conference regular season champions! That's right, in our new conference, where it just means more, it's more of the same for your Longhorns! And it was so awesome clinching the title with some incredible Texas Fight on a triumphant Thursday night in Norman, taking down our Red River Rivals on their home turf in a thrilling 7-4 win! That got the stampede rollin' with wins aplenty for our Horns last weekend as Men's Tennis advanced to the NCAA Final Four, Softball won the Austin Regional and moved on to hosting a Super Regional, Women's Golf advanced to the NCAA Match Play Quarterfinals, and three Longhorns won individual titles at the SEC Track and Field Championships. What a week it was and there's so much more to come so here's to a victory lap, a look back & ahead, and a whole lot of Texas Fight! It's time to do it again with that patented Longhorn passion, pride and spirit … we're in the stretch run and couldn't be more fired up, so let's get those HORNS UP!
light the tower for @TexasBaseball 🤘#HookEm | @LivingSpaces pic.twitter.com/W3FRP1aybq
— Texas Longhorns (@TexasLonghorns) May 16, 2025
You can keep those braggin' rights flowing at the lunch table, water cooler, staff meetings, happy hour or wherever you're wearing that Burnt Orange pride my friends. Baseball made it nine overall conference championships (eight SEC and a CCSA crown for Beach Volleyball) and we've still got the SEC Baseball Tourney Title on the line this week. Let's raise those Horns High for our LEAGUE-LEADING EIGHT SEC CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHIES: Baseball, Women's Basketball (regular season), Rowing, Soccer (tourney), Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving and Men's Tennis (regular season/tourney). And Football had the SEC's best regular season record and earned a spot in the conference championship game to boot. With this week's Baseball Tourney being the final SEC Championship competition, our Horns have already doubled the next closest conference school's title trophy count with South Carolina (4) being the closest challenger. New league, same championship pedigree and we're just getting started! And, we told you a few weeks ago when we clinched it, but now it's official. We've won the Cotton Holdings Lone Star Showdown Trophy for the 2024-25 season with a final victorious tally of 11-7 over Texas A&M.
Tonight's clinching of outright regular season @SEC Championship for @TexasBaseball makes it 9️⃣ conference titles for our Longhorns this year ➡️ 8️⃣ SEC (Baseball, @TexasWBB, @TexasRowing, @TexasSoccer, @TexasMSD, @TexasWSD & @TexasMTN x2) & @TexasBeachVB CCSA🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🤘🏻 pic.twitter.com/0olUcvZVrz
— John Bianco (@UT_Bianco) May 16, 2025
Quick national nugget and flex for you this week folks. With Men's Tennis advancing to the Final Four and earning a tie for third place at the NCAA Championships, FIVE Longhorn teams have now earned top-three finishes (NCAA/CFP) this year. Joining our National Champion Men's Swimming and Diving squad are Women's Basketball (Final Four/t-3rd), Football (CFP Semifinals/t-3rd) and Women's Swimming and Diving (3rd). We're not done yet, folks!
It was a REGULAR SEASON FOR THE RECORD BOOKS for Coach Schloss and No. 3 Baseball. On Thursday night in Norman, our Horns secured the outright SEC Regular Season Championship with a comeback victory topped-off by Max Belyeu's — in his first game back from injury — clutch three-run homer in the ninth inning that was the difference in that "championship game." Our Horns followed that with a Saturday Red River Rivalry rout, 9-1, to close out the regular season with a series win over OU (our SEC-best eighth conference series win on the season, how about that?!), a 42-11 overall record and 22-8 mark in conference play. That's our best regular season in 15 years (since 2010) and if you're looking for more historical perspective, there's 16 teams in the SEC and only two have won the league's Baseball Championship in their first year —Georgia in the league's inaugural year (1933) and your 2025 Texas Longhorns. I'd say the SEC got a nice introduction to the pride and winning tradition of Texas Baseball! Now it's off to the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., where as the No. 1 seed we'll enjoy a double-bye and won't play until the quarterfinals of the single-elimination format on Thursday (3 p.m. CT/SEC Network). Here's to putting an exclamation on the regular season title with a conference tourney crown! Then we can tune into the NCAA Tourney Selection Show on Monday (11 a.m. CT/ESPN2) for the unveiling of this year's bracket, and you can fully expect to see us hosting the opening rounds.
new conference, same Horns 🤘#HookEm | @TexasLonghorns pic.twitter.com/nH6dKMDMW7
— Texas Baseball (@TexasBaseball) May 16, 2025
The bats, balls and mitts were poppin' at Red & Charline McCombs Field this weekend, too, as our Horns advanced to the SUPER REGIONALS FOR THE SIXTH STRAIGHT YEAR. I'd be remiss if I didn't first thank y'all for showing up and showing out! Wow, the temperature was risin' and so was the heat Longhorn Nation brought to the park. Longhorn Fam, you were incredible, and I must say the energy & enthusiasm you brought to the park sure did provide a huge homefield advantage all weekend long. Coach White and our sixth-seeded Longhorns were En fuego as well, and especially at the plate. Our bats were on fire putting up video game numbers, tallying 35 runs and 43 hits, including belting nine out of the park. We got things started Friday by run-ruling Eastern Illinois, 10-2, then how do you do on a record-setting Saturday that featured the most home runs ever (6) in an NCAA tournament game and a UT NCAA Regional Game-best 16 runs in a 16-4 win over Michigan. There was more of the same as we secured the regional title on Sunday with 15 hits, including three more homers, in a 9-0 win over UCF. In those three wins, the sensational Reese Atwood was 8-for-11, went yard three times and recorded 13 RBI. Now we get to do it again as our Road to Oklahoma City run continues right here on the Forty Acres! We'll be facing Clemson in our Super Regional at McCombs Field beginning on Thursday (8 p.m. CT/ESPN2) with a spot in the Women's College World Series on the line!
a perfect weekend at McCombs 🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/Pg2m0Ko9iY
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 18, 2025
It was not the ending we all wanted but it certainly was one heckuva ride Coach Berque and Men's Tennis took us on again this year. I couldn't be prouder of our guys as they advanced to a THIRD STRAIGHT FINAL FOUR and made us the only school in the nation to reach the Final Four in five of the last six years. All of that started when our phenomenal leader Coach Berque took over the program in 2019. After weather delays led to a late night 4-1 victory over UCLA on Friday for a spot in the NCAA semifinals, our Horns got right back at it on Saturday night. They left it all on the court in the NCAA Championship semifinal before coming up just short against the defending national champions from TCU. Their patented Texas Fight was on full display until the bitter end and as we look back, they can definitely hold their heads high in a season that included the SEC
Regular Season & Tourney Championships as well as matching the best overall dual-match record in program history at 29-5. It was another outstanding year, and we know they'll be right back in the thick of the championship race again next year.
Final: #3 Texas 2️⃣ - #2 TCU 4️⃣
— Texas Men's Tennis (@TexasMTN) May 18, 2025
What a season – the Horns reached their third-straight Final Four and fifth in the last six years and complete the season 29-5, tied for the most wins in program history since 1975.#HookEm 🤘🎾 | #NCAATennis pic.twitter.com/hmxgD6jfgQ
We're TAKING DEAD AIM at the Men's and Women's Golf NCAA Championships! After a solid four rounds of stroke play, Coach Ianello and Women's Golf earned a spot in the eight-team NCAA Championship Match Play field in Carlsbad, Calif., and they are facing off against Oregon in the quarterfinals as we speak (tune into Golf Channel starting at Noon CT for live coverage). That assures them of at least a top-five finish but we're taking dead aim on winning it all. Meanwhile on the men's side, despite some wild, windy and frigid weather conditions out west in Reno, Nev., Coach Fields and No. 4 Men's Golf persevered and punched their ticket to the NCAA Championships by placing third at Regionals. That extends our streak of qualifying for the NCAA Championships to 18-straight years and is the longest active streak in the nation. Our men begin competition at the NCAA Championship on Friday (2:12 p.m. CT) at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., the same location as our women are competing at and where we serve as the host school.
🗓️🎟️🤘#HookEm | @SeatGeek pic.twitter.com/2RKCu606Nd
— Texas Longhorns (@TexasLonghorns) May 19, 2025
Last week saw some RECORD-SETTING AND VICTORIOUS PERFORMANCES for Coach Flo and Track and Field at the SEC Championships in Lexington, Ky. Three Longhorns won individual titles with Kendrick Smallwood lowering his school record two more times in winning the 110m hurdles, Nina Ndubuisi breaking a 25-year school record on the way to claiming the shot put title and Akala Garrett adding an SEC crown in the 400m hurdles to the Big 12 Title she won in that event as a freshman last year. Our Longhorns will get a week off before returning to action at the NCAA West Preliminaries on May 28-31 in College Station.
Speaking of LIGHTING THE TOWER, I'd highly recommend taking a minute to check out this awesome video our creative staff produced celebrating your 2025 SEC Rowing Champions! With the NCAA Championships on the horizon later this month (May 30-June 1/Mercer County, N.J.), what a wonderful way to get amped up for Coach O'Neill and our No. 2 Rowing squad's quest for another crown. As I'm sure you know, we are the defending National Champs and "Captain Dave" and the squad have brought home three of the last four Natty's! We'll be right in the thick of it again this year, too!!
A successful weekend in east Tennessee 🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/zScJ6Q99nF
— Texas Rowing (@TexasRowing) May 14, 2025
And before we get to all the notes, here's an EMPHATIC THANK YOU to our loyal and dedicated Longhorn Family for joining us at Saturday night's Texas One Fund event supporting our student-athletes. It was a big 'ol party, a smashing success, and I've got to give a big shoutout to Parker McCollum, Leon Bridges and Lynyrd Skynyrd for truly fantastic performances. They absolutely brought the house down at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium in what was one memorable event. What starts here changes the world and this is an event that is absolutely doing that!
Oh, and you gotta love the gritty, gutsy and determined Texas Fight our guy Scottie Scheffler put on in winning the PGA Championship on Sunday. He EPITOMIZES TEXAS TOUGH in every way. Horns Up and congrats my friend!
that's 3️⃣ career Major titles for our guy 🤘#TakeDeadAim | @PGAChampionship pic.twitter.com/924aDmvUD8
— Texas Men's Golf (@TexasMGolf) May 18, 2025
Absolutely getting it done in the classroom!
Folks, as pleased as I am about the continued success by our teams across the board, I continue to be even more excited and almost giddy about the absolute excellence of our student-athletes in the classroom. The primary mission of college athletics should always be to foster the education and all-around development of our students. I know I mentioned it in last week's Insider, but it bears repeating. When you include the 35 student-athletes who earned their degrees in December to the 82 who participated in commencement last week, we are so proud of our 117 graduates during the 2024-25 academic calendar year. And here's some additional numbers that I must share, and you can feel great about. Of our 524 active student-athletes who were here in the spring 2025 semester, 456 (87-percent) hold at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA and 442 (84-percent) earned a 3.0 or better spring 2025 semester GPA. Kudos to the 64 student-athletes who earned a 4.0 semester GPA in spring 2025! And the kicker for me, EVERY SINGLE ONE of our sport programs carried at least a 3.0 spring 2025 semester GPA AND at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA following the spring 2025 semester. I'm sure you've heard it in many of Coach Sark's interviews, but he often boasts of the correlation between on-field and academic success and his team lived up to that with a second-straight CFP Semifinal appearance and 3.31 team GPA this spring. Like he always says, "who you are some of the time is who you are all of the time," and that is something all of our student-athletes are epitomizing. Here's an emphatic Hook 'Em, Horns to our entire Student Services staff in Athletics and the yeoman's work and support they provide to each and every one of our student-athletes on the Forty Acres. Great job!
putting the student in student-athletes 👏🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/c57qglUhJS
— Texas Longhorns (@TexasLonghorns) May 19, 2025
Baseball wins the SEC Regular-Season Title!
LIGHT THE TOWER ORANGE!!! Coach Schloss and the boys are your Southeastern Conference Champions!! And if that wasn't impressive enough, they're the first team to win the SEC in its first season since the league's inaugural campaign in 1933! Picked eighth in the preseason poll, Texas fought its way to the title, clinching its crown with a 7-4 comeback victory on Thursday against Red River Rival Oklahoma. They say it just means more and clinching the SEC on your rival's turf, well, yeah it certainly does! In his first game back from injury since March 28, Max Belyeu was the hero. Belyeu delivered a 418-foot three-run homer to push the Longhorns ahead in the ninth, and as he's done all year long, Dylan Volantis put on the finishing touches to secure Texas' 81st regular season conference championship in program history. But even with the trophy in hand, the Longhorns wanted to cap off their regular season in style. Texas notched its SEC-leading eighth series win, crushing the Sooners, 9-1, in the finale on Saturday. By the time the Longhorns exploded for eight runs over the final three innings, it was 7:12 p.m. and well you know the rest! Schloss and his crew kept stealing the headlines all weekend long that it even leaked over into Monday. Volantis was not only named one of 25 semifinalists for the prestigious Golden Spikes Award on Sunday, but he garnered SEC Freshman of the Year honors 24 hours later! And let's not bury the lede too, too much…the SEC Coach of the Year wears burnt orange, baby! Congratulations to Dylan, Coach Schloss and the rest of our All-SEC Horns on an incredible regular season. Fresh off its best regular season in 15 years, Texas earned the No. 1 seed in the SEC Baseball Tournament. The Longhorns will open postseason play on Thursday (3 p.m. CT/SEC Network) and face either eighth-seeded Tennessee, ninth-seeded Alabama or 16th-seeded Missouri in its first-ever contest at the infamous Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
🏆 SEC CHAMPIONS 🏆#HookEm | @TexasLonghorns | @SEC pic.twitter.com/hjeZYVrp57
— Texas Baseball (@TexasBaseball) May 16, 2025
Softball smashes through Austin Regional, set to host NCAA Super Regional!
What a sizzler at Red & Charline McCombs over the weekend! And I'm not just talking about the temperature at the ballpark; those Texas bats were ON FIRE as our Longhorns swept through the Austin Regional in dominating fashion to help send Coach White to his 15th-consecutive NCAA Super Regional as a head coach. What a feat for one of the best in the country! And if we are speaking about one of the best in the country, we have to mention Reese Atwood. She set ANOTHER PROGRAM RECORD with 13 RBI on the weekend, the most RBI by a Longhorn in any NCAA Regional ever. Our catcher is on pace to not only be the program's first repeat All-American since Janae Jefferson but also break her own single-season RBI record set just last year. But enough about postseason honors, let's talk about the right here and now, which began with the Longhorns' 10-2 runaway victory over Eastern Illinois last Friday. The offense produced those 10 runs on 15 hits with the top of the lineup going a combined 10-for-13 with seven RBI. That set the tone for a Saturday contest that saw Texas connect for SIX HOME RUNS, including a pair from Katie Stewart, as the Longhorns smacked down the Wolverines, 16-4, to advance to the regional finals. And in regional-clinching games, there's no one better than Teagan Kavan. The stud sophomore ace was up to her old tricks, again, as she and the offense blanked UCF, 9-0, to send our ladies to the Super Regionals for a sixth consecutive season. Speaking of that NCAA Super Regional, we'll face Clemson in a win-two-out-of-three series that begins on Thursday night (8 p.m. CT/ESPN2) and continues on Friday night (8 p.m. CT/ESPN2). An 'if necessary' Game 3 is currently slated for Saturday evening (8 p.m. CT/TBD). Make sure to purchase those tickets this week. Longhorn Foundation donor tickets and all-session tickets are currently on sale, while single-session tickets are available beginning on Wednesday at 8 a.m. CT. Let's keep Red & Charline McCombs Field rockin' and rollin' this week and send the Longhorns back to OKC!
it's all lined up for Supers 🤘#HookEm | @TexasLonghorns pic.twitter.com/XzZGwRsHdM
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 19, 2025
Men's Golf advances to the NCAA Championship
Talk about some serious Texas Fight! Coach Fields and our No. 4 Men's Golf team battled all sorts of crazy conditions last week in Reno, Nevada at the NCAA Regional to post a third-place team finish and punched their ticket to the NCAA Championship. On the opening day of the regional, wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour delayed the start time by eight hours and the field was only able to get six-to-eight holes of play completed. The second day included more delays due to snowfall in the morning, before the teams were able to get on the course and compete in frigid conditions while completing the first round and getting a little more than halfway through the second round. Day three saw another frost delay in the morning, before the field was able to finish the second and final rounds. Our guys dug deep and managed to post a team score of 8-under in the final round and secure a top-five finish, making it a national-best 18 consecutive trips to the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships! Tip of the cap to Luke Potter, who tied for third in the individual standings at 6-under 210 (71-71-68), and the big guy Tommy Morrison (or T-Mo as I like to call him), who tied for seventh at 3-under 213 (72-69-72). Now it's off to the final stop in this group's journey, Omni La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif., where we will once again serve as the host institution for the NCAA Championships on Friday through Wednesday. Fairways and greens, gentlemen!
See y'all at @OmniLaCosta 🤘#TakeDeadAim | #NCAAGolf pic.twitter.com/eEqPIjbLnm
— Texas Men's Golf (@TexasMGolf) May 15, 2025
Outdoor Track & Field puts a bow on SEC Championship meet
Our No. 17/13 Men's and Women's Outdoor Track and Field team went over to Lexington for the three-day SEC Outdoor Championships and left with two top-10 team finishes. The men placed seventh with 53.5 points, while our women tied for ninth with 53 points. A total of 26 Longhorns scored at the meet, with Isaac Alonzo doubling in the men's 10K and 5K to score much-needed points. Talk about a gritty performance, as that's over nine miles on the track! We can't forget about our long hurdler Kody Blackwood who finished as the runner-up in the 400-meter hurdles with a new personal-best time of 48.78. Only two Longhorns have ever ran faster in the Burnt Orange and White. And how about Elizabeth Stockman who competed against some of the best 1500-meter runners in the country and stole a medal with her time of 4:20.88. Y'all should've seen the kick she gave at the end to secure that medal! Proud of these Longhorns and can't wait to see who they send through to the NCAA Championships in two weeks (May 28-31) when we're back in action at the NCAA West Preliminaries in College Station.
Hook 'Em Horns,
P.S. — Check out this link for an online auction alert on some of our old Football lockers!
❗️ONLINE AUCTION ALERT❗️🏈
— UT Surplus Property (@UTSurplus) May 16, 2025
2017-2024 Season @TexasFootball team lockers❗️🤘 BID HERE➡️ https://t.co/0E0YscU4uo #HookEm #TexasLonghorns #Texasfootball #UTAustin @TexasLonghorns @TexasExes @UTAustin @KXAN_News @fox7austin pic.twitter.com/K4fy2Y7hji
P.S. — What an awesome weekend indeed, not done yet!
What an AWESOME weekend for our Longhorns🤘🏻@TexasBaseball wins SEC Championship🏆@TexasMTN advanced to NCAA Final Four@TexasSoftball stampedes thru Austin Regional and on to Supers@TexasTFXC 3 SEC individual titles🥇🥇🥇@TexasWGolf looking to advance to Match Play at NCAAs pic.twitter.com/tJclxrSLAc
— John Bianco (@UT_Bianco) May 18, 2025
P.S. — We see ya Coach Sark, appreciate you representin' our Longhorns!
Center stage at #DisneyUpfront 🤘@CoachSark x @TexasLonghorns pic.twitter.com/T0iuxUbhbM
— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) May 14, 2025
Awesome to have @CoachSark among the star-studded cast at the #DisneyUpfront event🤘🏼 https://t.co/newcx1lYv9 pic.twitter.com/PCEGQIIUpO
— John Bianco (@UT_Bianco) May 14, 2025
P.S. — What Starts Here! Let's go Tre!!
next stop: the league🤘#HookEm | @iamtrejohnson1 pic.twitter.com/naDCuf2YmA
— Texas Men's Basketball (@TexasMBB) May 14, 2025
P.S. — Coach White remains perfect!
15 for 15 🤘#HookEm | @TexasCoachWhite pic.twitter.com/oyyyf9jm3i
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 18, 2025
P.S. — With team success comes individual honors!
let's hear it for the squad 👏🤘#HookEm | @NFCAorg pic.twitter.com/BNJ6QF6xuy
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) May 15, 2025
P.S. — What Starts Here!
Some of @TexasFootball's finest 🤘🏻#RookiePremiere #NFLPA #JerseyReveal pic.twitter.com/it48Wtt7AP
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) May 17, 2025
P.S. — What a Night, Thank You Longhorn Nation and Texas One Fund!
Incredible performance by @leonbridges at a first class event with @TexasOneFund- What starts here changes the world. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/9fafHGEm2H
— Sean Miller (@CoachMiller__) May 18, 2025
P.S. — #FACTS!
Of 16 SEC programs, only Texas and Georgia claimed the SEC Baseball Championship in first year in league. UGA did it in 1933 season that included 10 original SEC members. Arkansas & South Carolina (1992), Missouri & Texas A&M (2013) and Oklahoma (2025) did not win it in year 1🤘🏼 https://t.co/X0MB8FzMAs
— John Bianco (@UT_Bianco) May 16, 2025
HEADLINES:
No. 3 Baseball's Volantis named Golden Spikes semifinalist
Video: Men's Tennis NCAA Quarterfinals postmatch press conference
Football season tickets sold out for the 2025 season
No. 6 Women's Golf's Laura Ianello named assistant coach for Palmer Cup
No. 4 Men's Golf's Maas named finalist for Fred Haskins Award
Six from No. 3/4 Softball earn spots on NFCA All-Central Teams
Coach Sark among the Power Players at Disney's Upfront 25 Event
Women's Tennis signs international standout Mathilde Ngijol-Carré
Your impact: Changing lives across the world
Video: Sean Miller joins The Field of 68