The fabulous freshman continues to add to her resume as the Longhorns begin their journey toward a second straight national championship.
The nation's No. 2 overall-seeded Texas Longhorns beat Wagner 9-1 in five innings to open the Austin Regional and advance into the winner's bracket.
And in the process, freshman Hannah Wells added to her stellar first season for the Longhorns.
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Wells' fourth-inning home run, her 14th of the season, set a new freshman program record. The Coahoma, Texas native and last year's Gatorade high school national player of the year finished her NCAA tournament debut 2 for 3 at the plate.
But that wasn't all.
She was also perfect in the circle as the winning pitcher, handling the final three innings and retiring all nine batters she faced. Wells struck out seven of those.
The Longhorns began their national title defense by winning their 11th straight regional contest. According to Texas Athletics, the Horns are 20-3 all-time in regional play under head coach Mike White.
After going down 1-0 after the first half-inning, the Longhorns offense came alive with a pair of RBI base hits by Viviana Martinez in the first and third innings. Katie Stewart, the SEC Player of the Year, went 2-3 at the plate.
Texas now prepares to face Wisconsin, who pulled out an extra-inning win over Baylor on Friday, on Saturday for the right to appear in the regional final. The winner will advance and would need to get double-dipped to be eliminated, while the loser will play another game Saturday to try to keep their season alive.
Wisconsin is back in the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years and has never reached the super regional round in program history.
Texas will be led by star pitcher Teagan Kavan in the circle on Saturday. Kavan is 10-2 in her career in NCAA tournament play. She near the top of national rankings this season with 207 strikeouts in 169.1 innings pitched and holds a 2.65 earned run average entering Saturday's contest against the Badgers.
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