2025 Diamond Quickhits

I wanted a fuller post on the end of the softball season and the second-to-last weekend of the baseball regular season, but big news dropped out of the UT Arlington Athletic Department today that will take the bulk of my limited time to produce these entries.

The softball team ended their season with a 4-1 loss to the host California Baptist Lancers in the Western Athletic Conference tournament. I really dislike the WAC's format, as the first games by the five through eight seeds are single-elimination, but UTA ends the year on a 4-13 slide and a once promising winning season, which hasn't happened since 2019, eluded UTA again. The Mavericks finished 24-25 on the year,

The baseball team kept their theme intact for the year. They lost a weekend series 1-2 at the last-place team in the WAC. After winning 11-1 in eight innings against Utah Tech, to open the three-game set UTA dropped game two 10-8 and game three 9-7.

Limping Towards the End

In the recent UT Arlington softball posts, I have mentioned the downward trend the team is on as the season comes to a close. The trend did not reverse itself this past weekend in the season finale and senior day at Allan Saxe Field. 

Heading into the series, UTA was 23-22. They are hoping for their first winning season since 2019. They were playing a team tied with them in the standings at their own friendly confines. They were playing for their seniors at home. All the pieces were there for a bump heading to the Western Athletic Conference tournament in Riverside California.

Coming into this weekend, UTA had won two of its last 12 games. After climbing to 21-10 and 6-3 in the WAC, the Mavericks looked like they were on pace for their best season in a while. But a sweep at the hands of Grand Canyon and series losses to Utah Valley, California Baptist, Southern Utah and now Seattle have put that in jeopardy

UTA will need to go at least 3-2 in the conference tournament for that winning record or split to avoid a losing season. There's an additional impediment that the other teams aren't facing to reach that goal.

Much Needed Weekend

The theme of the 2025 UT Arlington baseball team has been one of near misses. This past weekend did not exhibit any of the traits I have observed this season. It was one of the more dominant weekends this year.

In the last post regarding baseball, I had the following quote:

Eight one-run losses, two losses by two runs and three losses by three account for 13 of UTA's  24 losses.

Counting the week after that post, but prior to this weekend, that number had grown to nine one-run losses and three two-run losses. UTA lost by one run to Grand Canyon and had a two-run setback to Texas Christian in a midweek loss.

The Slide Continues

The UT Arlington softball team was hoping for a redemption weekend on the road against the University of Southern Utah and they were on pace for it, but for the first time that I have personally witnessed, UTA was just as big an impediment to a win as their opponent.

Going into the series, both teams were 8-10 in the Western Athletic Conference and fighting for positioning in the standings and the upcoming conference tournament. With two series left, it was a pretty big weekend.

In game one, things went about as expected. The Mavericks won 14-5 in an abbreviated five innings. The offense scored in every inning but the fourth, culminated by five in the second inning and six runs in the third. Utility Junior Marley Nieses, Sophomore catcher Mia McNulty and utility Sophomore Kaitlyn Sailor each hit a home run. Sixth-year pitcher Emilie Hoelscher picked up the win.

Shooting Blanks

I normally don't like putting two sports in the same post for a few reasons. One of those reasons is I try to try keep a theme to the post and different sports and/or teams tend to be on different trajectories or have different personalities. However, this past week, both the baseball and softball teams from UT Arlington had a very similar performance. Each had a winless weekend. While I could put up two shorter posts rather than one medium one, the theme seems fitting to keep them together.

In last week's softball entry, I noted how there was a bit of a slide entering the weekend after a really good start to the season, losing the previous two Western Athletic Conference series, winning one and losing two in consecutive weekends. Well, this past weekend was worse overall. With the ever-hated Grand Canyon Antelopes coming to Allan Saxe Field, UTA had a chance to make a little bit of noise, but it did not pan out. 

On Friday, UTA lost consecutive doubleheader games in a run-rule fashion, 3-11 and 1-10, each ending after six innings. Sophomore pitcher Abi Gutierrez started the first game and went five innings, giving up eight runs, six earned, in the loss. Sixth-year pitcher Emilie Hoelscher started the second and had a nearly equally rough outing, 5.2 innings pitched, nine runs given up, six earned. UTA never had a lead in either game.

Hitting a Stride

The UT Arlington softball team may well be the most surprising team of the current athletic season. The volleyball team won a regular season and tournament crown, bucking a general UTA trend of disappointing performances in the postseason in all sports, but were picked second in the preseason polls. The cross country teams finished in the approximate position of their pre-race picks prior to the conference race. Same with the indoor track teams. The women's basketball team was like the volleyball girls. The men's basketball team may be in the running, but in today's era of transfers nothing surprises me regardless of the preseason pick.

This blog entry would have been a little more on topic two weeks ago, but consecutive 1-2 weekends have dropped their position in the Western Athletic Conference standings. Picked in a tie for seventh in the WAC, the Mavs are currently in a tie for third. After five straight losing seasons, they are currently 22-16 overall and 8-7 in the WAC.

Looking at the stat lines for the team, there is no one dominant reason for the over .500 record. What we have seen over the last few weeks has been team play, getting a timely hit or out when needed, stiff defense and a general improvement in the team performance.

Trading One for Two

The 2025 version of the UT Arlington baseball has been a theme: fairly consistent from start to April. That consistency has been seen in the series, stats, records and performance. While the average sports fan tends to want consistency, what this UTA team has shown has been a hair below par.

I'll start with the series' so far this year. Between both conference and non-conference series, UTA has played eight to this point. All but a weather shortened two-game set against Oklahoma State saw three games played. The good news, the Mavericks have not been swept to this point in three full games. However, UTA hasn't earned a sweep either. 

UTA has won two series of the eight, the first against UT San Antonio on the road to open the year and the second occurred at Clay Gould against Little Rock in the middle of March. In addition to OSU, UTA has lost to Houston, Louisiana-Monroe, Sacramento State, California Baptist, and Lamar.

To add insult to injury, UTA is 1-5 in midweek games. Sam Houston State, Oklahoma, Texas-Austin, Baylor and a ranked Dallas Baptist account for the five losses. Three were to ranked teams. UTA stopped the streak on Tuesday against TCU. It took April for the Mavs to see their first non-weekend win.