Mike White pored over the scouting report on the Siena softball team and made a calculated decision before top-seeded Texas’ postseason opener Friday in the NCAA Austin Regional.

He noticed that the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament champion wasn’t overly blessed with a luxury of power, so he chose to play his outfield shallow behind his infield.

Little did he know he wouldn’t need to play his outfield at all.

He could have kept right fielder Ashton Maloney, center fielder Kayden Henry and left fielder Bella Dayton in the dugout all day, and it wouldn’t have affected the game at all.

Who needs outfielders when you’ve got Mac Morgan on the mound?

The junior right-hander not only threw a no-hitter in Texas’ 5-0 victory to send the Longhorns to Saturday afternoon’s winners’ bracket game against Northwestern, but she came within one batter of the school’s 12th perfect game in history. Moreover, she didn’t allow the Saints to even hit a ball beyond the infield.

Not bad for the current No. 3 pitcher in White’s rotation.

Yep, that’s how good and deep this Texas staff is.

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The decision allowed White to have ace Teagan Kavan and No. 1 Citlaly Gutierrez fresh and rested for the rest of the regional unless, of course, he just wants to stick with Morgan for the duration.

“I’m sure Mac would love to do that,” White said. ”Hopefully we don't have to. We have four other pitchers that can throw.”

But Morgan’s outing once again demonstrated the tremendous depth on the mound as the Longhorns, the overall No. 1 seed of the tournament, improved to 48-7 Friday.

Mac Morgan was the right pitcher at the right time

With an opponent hitting only .270 as a team — Texas, meanwhile, leads the nation with a .379 collective batting average — White decided to go with one of the best contact pitchers in softball and let his fairly reliable defense play ball behind her.

Not that pressure is anything new to this country girl from Creighton, Mo. She’s so into country life and cattle, she might be a rancher someday. Whatever her future avocation, she’s usually the first one in the building and as team-centric as they come.

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Morgan struck out only four batters, but control and command are more her game as she retired 16 batters via groundouts and one lineout to first. The Saints rarely had a hard-hit ball, and Texas’ defense had few tough chances aside from a nice backhand stop by second baseman Alyssa Washington in the fifth.

Siena entered the tournament as the 64th and last seed and had to win four straight games to earn the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA field. The Saints have a terrific pitcher of their own in Alissa Eimont, who threw four complete-game victories in the MAAC Tournament, and the nation’s 34th-best defense.

Asked if they had faced a pitcher as good as Morgan, Siena coach Casey Bump said, “No, we haven’t. But we attacked her pretty well. She brought strikes, but we weren’t intimidated.”

Eimont largely held Texas at bay because, as Saints outfielder Isabella Pardo put it, “seven of their last eight games, they’ve crushed teams (with run-rule victories).”

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That wasn’t the case Friday although the Longhorns’ dozen hits, including four bunt singles, two infield singles and Viviana Martinez’s solo home run over the center field wall, were plenty.

Mac Morgan was as close to perfection as you could get

Morgan might not have been perfect, but she was pretty near flawless in a performance for the ages. She retired 21 of the 22 batters she faced. And even after she walked Siena’s No. 3 batter in the order, Jocelyn Ulrigh, on four pitches out of the strike zone, she quickly gathered herself and got Emma Petersen to ground into a forceout at second to end the game.

Morgan then began walking to the dugout before getting swarmed by her teammates.

“It’s going to happen to all good pitchers,” Morgan said of a brief loss of focus on the one walk he allowed.

For her part, Morgan was the picture of calm. Throughout. The right-hander White calls his “bulldog” kept her composure the entire day, even though she didn’t even learn she’d gotten the nod until Friday morning.

“I got a text this morning,” she said.

No way.

“Hey, that’s early for us,” Morgan said. “Sometimes we’re told at the team meeting.”

Responded White, “That’s just how we roll.”

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If the coach’s ploy is to reduce any pregame anxiety and prevent any jitters, it worked, because Morgan was locked in from the very first pitch. What’s to get nervous about?

Morgan combined on a no-hitter in last year’s regional at McCombs Field. Her victory Friday raised her career mark in college to 49-8 with a 31-5 mark in two years in Austin. And when it ended with the 56th no-hitter in school history, she didn’t throw a fist or let out a primal scream or register any sign of emotion at all.

“When I get emotional, things start to get a little hairy,” Morgan said. “So I just tried to keep it one level. It takes me awhile to get out of game mode. I’m just going to get the job done.”

That she did.

This transfer from Arizona State has been taking care of business since she arrived on campus more than a year ago. She was the ace of last year’s staff and now bolsters a rotation that puts Texas’ pitchers on a par with other national championship contenders such as Oklahoma, Tennessee and Duke.

Morgan represents a long-standing pattern for White since he came to Texas from Oregon and brought his star pitcher, Miranda Elish, with him. He landed Hailey Dolcini from Fresno State a couple of years ago to lead the rotation to the Women’s College World Series and grabbed top reliever Estelle Czech away from North Carolina State to fill out this staff, which could take the Longhorns a long way.

Morgan’s just the latest, a true no-nonsense kind of gal. And with yet another no-hitter to prove it.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas' no-nonsense softball pitcher Mac Morgan throws a no-hitter