Around Campus

One-Two-Three: Longhorn Spring Teams Finish First, Second
and Third at Their Respective 2005 NCAA Championships

Jubilation! The UT women’s outdoor track and field team celebrates its 2005 NCAA Championship – the fifth NCAA title in Texas women’s track history. Remarkably, head coach Bev Kearney’s squad competed with just seven performers at the NCAA meet en route to winning the team title.

Head coach Jeff Moore’s tennis players pose with their NCAA Championship second-place trophy at a reception honoring the national runner-ups in Austin: (l to r) Petra Dizdar, Katie Ruckert, Ristine Olson, Kendra Strohm, Kelly Baritot, Courtney Zauft and Erin Keys. (Not pictured: Mira Marovic)

It was a banner spring for the 2005-06 Texas women’s athletics program. Three Longhorn teams– outdoor track and field, tennis and softball – added more NCAA trophies and created buzz in the collegiate sports world with three standout finishes at NCAA National Championship competi- tions in May and June.

The track and field squad, led by head coach Bev Kearney, brought back to Austin the 44th NCAA Championship team title when it clinched the 2005 crown on June 12 in Sacramento, California. Kearney earned her sixth national title – five with Texas – when her seven competitors racked up 55 points to beat the much-deeper and favored teams from South Carolina and UCLA.

The Longhorns women’s tennis team, under the direction of head coach Jeff Moore, surprised the tennis world with its second-place finish at the NCAA Championships in May. The UT tennis team entered the NCAA Championship ranked No. 11 nationally, and made its great run to the NCAA title match with an eight-player roster comprised of four juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen. Three consecutive upset victories vaulted the Longhorns into the 2005 NCAA title match against undefeatd and top-ranked Stanford. The Longhorns ended the season with a 25-6 record.

Connie Clark’s softball squad posted a third-place tie at the 2005 NCAA Women’s College World Series (softball’s final eight). The Longhorn softball squad was headlined by 2004 USA Olympic gold medalist Cat Osterman, who is also the 2005 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and the Honda Player of the Year Award winner. UT was making its third trip to the elite Women’s College World Series (WCWS) in the program’s nine-year history, also qualifying in 1998 and in 2003 when UT also placed third. The Longhorns went 2-2 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the WCWS. Osterman went 30-7 and led the nation in earned run average with a 0.36 mark. She posted 593 strikeouts on the season for an NCAA-best 15.2 strikeouts per seven innings, an all-time record.

For more information on these three Texas NCAA powerhouse teams (photo galleries, feature stories, statistics and bios) and for all University of Texas Athletics news, please visit www.TexasSports.com.