The regular season has concluded for the UT Arlington softball team and for the first time in six years, UTA will have a winning record. At 24-21, regardless of the results in the upcoming Western Athletic Conference tournament, the Mavericks are guaranteed to have more wins than losses. A late 3-8 stretch last year put the UTA one game below .500.
This year came on the strength of a 12-6 conference mark. With a .667 winning percentage, that is the best conference mark since the COVID year's 2-1 mark. The last in a full season was a 20-10 mark in 2011 during the Southland Conference era. In the Sun Belt, there weren't many winning conference seasons, but 2019's 17-10 mark was the high-water mark. It's the first winning WAC season in five tries, including the lone year in 2013.
The results came on the backs of a relentless offense. UTA hit 59 home runs this year, a program best. In the WAC, second-place Tarleton State hit 42 for comparison. What's impressive, is UTA's 45 games played is last in the WAC. The range is a high of 55 by TSU and California Baptist (the top two teams in the WAC standings) to a low of 47 by sixth-place Southern Utah. Keep that in mind for the following stats.
In addition to being first in home runs, UTA sits second in runs with 304, second in RBI with 268, second in slugging percentage at .519, third in hit by pitches at 35 and third in on base percentage at .390. Had they played the same number of games as TSU and CBU, many of those stat categories see UTA at the top. Also note, these numbers were gathered with one game left for every other team in the conference and are subject to change.
With such a dominant performance, of course there will be some players atop the conference.
