McCombs Field, home of the eighth-ranked Texas Longhorns, is the destination this week for South Dakota softball as the Coyotes make their final preparations ahead of Summit League play.
 
The Coyotes will play five games in three days in Austin, Texas, starting Friday with a 1 p.m. matchup with the Longhorns. It will be the first meeting between the two programs. The Coyotes will also meet UTSA and UT Arlington for the first time.
 
The Schedule
Friday
1 p.m. | Texas & 3:30 p.m. | UTSA
 
Saturday
4 p.m. | UT Arlington & 7 p.m. | UTSA
 
Sunday
10 a.m. | UT Arlington
 
How to follow
Live stats are available for all games. TexasSports.com is also providing a radio call of South Dakota's game against Texas
 
The Longhorn Network
The Longhorn Network is broadcasting every game of the tournament. However, due to Texas baseball and the Texas Relays, only Sunday's 10 a.m. game with UT Arlington will be televised live. The other four games will be tape delayed and shown at the following times:
 
Friday vs. Texas – 10 p.m.
Friday vs. UTSA – 2 a.m. (Saturday morning)
Saturday vs. UT Arlington – 10:30 p.m.
Saturday vs. UTSA – 12:30 a.m. (Sunday morning)
 
Tyler Denning and Alex Loeb will be part of the teams calling the games along with former Texas catcher Megan Willis (Friday) and former Oklahoma outfielder Erin Miller (Saturday, Sunday)
 
The Longhorn Network is available nationwide with satellite, cable and telecom providers. It's available with Sling TV and also via the ESPN App. Click here for more information.
 
The Opponents
 
Texas (20-3, picked second in the Big 12)
Texas has been in the NCAA Tournament every year since 2005 with three Women's College World Series Appearances in that time, though the last one came in 2013. The program poached former Oregon skipper Mike White and he is in his third season in Austin. He features a potent lineup with four players hitting above .400 and two others who have combined for 19 home runs. His ace is Shea O'Leary, the 2019 National Freshman of the Year who is 23-3 for her career.
 
UTSA (5-13, picked fourth in C-USA West Division)
The Roadrunners were longtime members of the Southland Conference before joining Conference USA in 2014 under coach Michelle Cheatham, now in her eighth season. The team was 14-11 when play was halted a year ago, but enter play this weekend on an 11-game slide including two losses to Kansas City last weekend. Second baseman Riley Grunberg is a preseason all-conference pick who hit .387 last year and is hitting .275 with a team-best six home runs and 19 RBIs this year. Veteran outfielder Celeste Loughman leads the team with a .484 on-base percentage.
 
UT Arlington (4-18, 1-5 Sun Belt)
The Mavericks had posted three straight 30-win seasons and won the 2019 NIVC Championship before play was stopped in 2020. The start to this season is a bit of an anomaly and a tough schedule certainly shoulders some weight. The team is batting .232 with a team ERA of 7.30. Infielder KJ Murphy leads the squad with a .349 average with two home runs and nine RBIs. The pitching staff, with a combination of newcomers and returners, has 56 strikeouts against 107 walks in 146 innings. Forty long balls in 22 games have certainly hurt the numbers, but teams are batting just .287 against them.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota returned to full strength from a roster standpoint last weekend in Kansas, but couldn't snap its current streak. Senior pitcher Gill Woodward was on the wrong end of a 1-0 loss to Tulsa and the offense came alive in an extra-inning loss to Kansas in the finale, a game the Jayhawks scored four times in the seventh inning to force extras.
 
Redshirt freshman Makayla Tsagalis returned to the lineup and seemingly didn't miss a beat, going 6-for-17 in Lawrence and moved her average to a team-best .379 in just 10 games. Jadyn DeWitte hit the team's second home run and her season average of .298 ranks second.
 
From a pitching standpoint, walks were down last week and strikeouts were up. The Coyotes rotated five different pitchers and plan to have four available this weekend. Senior Sarah Lisko has logged more than half the team's innings.