OKLAHOMA CITY — Texas’ 2025 softball roster options seven All-SEC picks, three Collegiate Participant of the 12 months prime 25 finalists and two Nationwide Fastpitch Coaches Affiliation All-Individuals. However few, if any in any respect, of the No. 9 Longhorns grew up fairly like junior catcher Reese Atwood, who spent her childhood on a South Texas ranch guiding searching journeys and breeding whitetail breeder bucks.
“I acquired to hold across the deer quite a bit — my job was to trace the infants down and ear-tag them,” Atwood instructed ESPN this week. “I grew up with quite a lot of accountability, all the time working from a younger age. It gave me a piece ethic and a information that it takes onerous work to do issues proper.”
Life on the ranch was simply part of a small-town upbringing in Sandia, Texas — inhabitants: 326 — that helped form Atwood, the All-American slugger on the middle of Texas’ newest Girls’s School World Sequence run.
After a breakout sophomore season, Atwood is once more pacing Texas. She leads the Longhorns in dwelling runs (21), RBIs (86), walks (41) and whole bases (153), and she or he earned All-SEC first-team honors this season. On Might 2, Atwood grew to become the primary Texas participant to eclipse 200 profession RBIs with a two-run dwelling run in opposition to Kentucky.
Hitless with a stroll and a sacrifice fly RBI in 5 at-bats throughout Texas’ first two WCWS wins, the Longhorns are nonetheless ready for Atwood to elevate off. If something, the sleeping big within the coronary heart of the lineup solely makes the Texas offense scarier because the Longhorns enter Monday’s nationwide semifinal in opposition to No. 7 Tennessee (midday ET, ESPN) sitting one win away from this system’s third WCWS finals look since 2022.
“Reese has been the one main our manufacturing,” Texas coach Mike White stated. “We go as she goes, usually. Reese is a kind of youngsters the place you by no means need to take a break and go to the concession stand. You all the time watch her at-bats since you by no means know what she’ll do subsequent.”
How did Atwood rise from the ranch to standing as the must-watch hitter in the midst of the Longhorns’ batting order? Tons — and plenty — of miles within the automotive.
GROWING UP IN Sandia was extra than simply protecting observe of the deer and tending to the chickens, goats, geese and smattering of unique animals at dwelling. It additionally featured loads of lengthy drives for the Atwood household.
Atwood started enjoying softball at 6 years outdated in a league in Corpus Christi, Texas, greater than 40 minutes from her dwelling. As she rose by means of the native choose softball ranks, these treks up and down Interstate 37 continued and grew extra frequent. Atwood’s high-level hitting and fielding classes usually required an hour-plus experience.
“We had been driving daily after faculty for apply, classes and video games on weekends,” her dad, Geoff Atwood, stated. “In some way, as dad and mom, we made it work. We found out methods to make it occur.”
By the top of center faculty, Atwood was a gifted catcher with a standout bat and a dream to play at Texas, the budding softball powerhouse three hours from dwelling in Austin. But, inside the restricted recruiting publicity of the journey ball scene in Corpus Christi, Atwood stated on the time she believed her future was extra doubtless on the junior faculty degree inside the state.
“Nobody was ever going to the large faculty packages [from Corpus],” Atwood stated.
For his or her daughter to interrupt by means of, the Atwoods understood extra automotive time would have to be logged.
After center faculty, Atwood joined the Houston-based journey program Hotshots Premier, which was practically 4 hours from dwelling. For the following 4 years, her dad and mom shuttled her round for video games and practices. When Atwood was in a hitting stoop, she’d get within the automotive together with her dad and go see Hotshots coach Nathan Nelson for an emergency hitting lesson. The gap by no means mattered.
“I would choose her up from faculty at 3:30 and I would drive virtually 4 hours for a one-hour session,” Geoff stated. “She’d be doing her homework at the back of the automotive and we would not get dwelling till midnight. That is how dedicated and in love with the game Reese was. As a mother or father, I used to be going to do all the things I may to assist her fulfill her goals and help her.”
Alongside teammates she’d later face in faculty and in opposition to higher-level competitors, Atwood’s recreation soared with the Hotshots.
Florida’s Ava Brown, Oklahoma’s Sam Landry and Kasidi Pickering, Tennessee’s Taylor Pannell, and the Texas Tech trio of Alexa Langeliers, Chloe Riassetto and Victoria Valdez are amongst Atwood’s former Hotshots counterparts within the 2025 WCWS subject.
Below Nelson, Atwood grew to become a three-time nationwide champion and hit .456, with 47 hits, 13 doubles, 9 dwelling runs and 34 RBIs in her closing summer season with this system. By Atwood’s senior season in highschool, she was the top-ranked catcher and No. 5 total prospect within the 2022 class, per Additional Inning Softball’s 2022 Additional Elite.
“I all the time held onto that dream of enjoying at Texas,” Atwood stated. “However I did not have it put in entrance of me till I began enjoying nationally for a Houston workforce.”
White, now in his seventh season main the Longhorns, noticed Atwood’s expertise throughout a collection of highschool scouting camps. Her potential behind the plate, White stated, was clear, harking back to former Florida catcher Aubree Munro, a two-time nationwide champion with the Gators in 2013-16. Atwood’s bat was uncooked however loaded with promise.
“We actually thought that together with her peak and leverage we may actually flip her right into a high-level Division I hitter,” White stated. “And happily we had been right on that assumption.”
ATWOOD STARTED 58 video games between catcher and first base, and led Texas with 11 dwelling runs as a freshman in 2023, then took it to a different degree as a sophomore final spring with 23 homers and 90 RBIs.
In 2025, she ranks 14th nationally in dwelling runs and twenty second in slugging share with extra RBIs than some other hitter within the nation, thriving solely three hours from dwelling and even nearer to a household ranch south of San Antonio. “I get to see my household quite a bit,” Atwood stated.
Three seasons in Austin have developed Atwood into one of many sport’s most completed hitters and helped her mature right into a core chief. With Atwood hardened by a WCWS finals defeat to Oklahoma final spring, White stated he seen a extra snug and vocal chief when she returned in 2025.
Reared on the ranch, Atwood matches proper into the edgy, hardworking mindset cast among the many Longhorns this spring.
The contemporary mentality confirmed up in a 3-0 WCWS opening win over Florida final Thursday. It appeared once more Saturday when the Longhorns cleared a yearslong hurdle with a 4-2 victory over four-time defending champion Oklahoma.
On Monday, Texas faces Tennessee because it eyes its subsequent breakthrough, in search of greater than a return to the WCWS finals for the third time in 4 years and pushing to maneuver one step nearer towards the primary nationwide title in program historical past.
“We have constructed this tradition of want this 12 months,” Atwood stated. “We’re going after the factor. We do not care what occurs.”
