Texas fell short in the national championship against Oklahoma on Friday, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying. After the game, UT freshman Kayden Henry revealed what she hopes fans remember about this year’s team.
“Our grit,” Henry said. “We fought this whole year. We had a great regionals, honestly, in my opinion. We have a young team. Any moment we were down, I feel like people can never count us out. We continued to fight. We showed our Texas fight the whole entire year. We worked our way to No. 1 for a reason. We’ll be back again.”
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Texas softball is on the rise. In his sixth season at the helm this year, head coach Mike White led the Longhorns to a 55-10 record and a 23-4 mark in conference play, earning the Big 12 regular season title for the first time during his tenure.
The stunning season was even better than Texas’ historic 2022 campaign when the Longhorns posted a 47-22-1 record and reached the Women’s College World Series Final for the first time. Henry hopes to make the Longhorns’ appearance in the national championship a yearly tradition.
The Dickinson, Texas, native certainly did her part this season. In her debut campaign, the 5-foot-3 outfielder played and started in 63 games for the Longhorns. She finished the season with a .379 batting average, nine home runs and 36 RBI, the fifth-most on the team.
Henry didn’t falter under the national championship’s bright lights. In the Longhorns’ loss on Thursday, Henry recorded a team-high two hits and one RBI on three at-bats. After the game, White revealed how proud he was of Kayden Henry and her fellow Longhorns.
“To my team, what an incredible effort. Great year,” White said. “As I told the four seniors that left, and by the book and use it from New Zealand Legacy, you leave the jersey in a better place. They have all done that and they can be extremely proud of their efforts and contributions to the program and to softball as a whole.
“I think our ladies conduct themselves in a way that you want your young kids to see and play the game,” White continued. “Not always perfect. I get it. We always make mistakes and everything. But they’re working hard, being ambassadors for the sport of softball.”
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