If you come for the would-be queens of college softball, you best not miss.

Northwestern missed several times over the weekend and the top-ranked Texas Longhorns made them pay dearly.

The Texas pitching was dang-near untouchable in this Austin Regional while the bats were downright angry after a Longhorn-like loss to three-time defending champion Oklahoma in the Big 12 Tournament finale.

Sunday’s 7-0 win over Northwestern completed a three-game steamroller where the Horns outscored the opposition 26-2 over 19 innings and came within four batters of a second no-hitter of the weekend.

Two days after junior right-hander Mac Morgan no-hit Siena — a two-out seventh-inning walk prevented Texas’ first complete-game perfect game since Longhorn legend Cat Osterman did it to Mississippi State in 2005 — freshman Teagan Kavan held the Wildcats hitless for 6⅔ innings before Angela Zedak lined a double off the left field wall.

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Kavan got off to a bit of a shaky start with a walk and hit batter in the first inning — hey, she’s a freshman pitching in her for first NCAA regional — before settling to what she did best. She fanned 12 and walked two on an economical 103 pitches, dropping her ERA to 1.87.

That’s the thing with the 2024 Longhorns. They have committed a season-long assault on little yellow softballs and have not so subtly sent a message to the nation that they are, indeed, the team to beat, even on that rare occasion when the pitching struggles.

“The momentum going into the game ahead is huge so we had to go in and dominate the whole game,” Kavan said. “I think (Saturday) we found out we're the visitors and (Vivi Martinez) and I were just like, ‘We can go score first now.’ Then to get seven runs behind us, it’s big confidence for us as pitchers and I’m sure the whole team.”

The Horns charged hard to win 18 straight games and wrest the Big 12 regular season title away from the three-time defending national champion Sooners, but they experienced a little let-up in Oklahoma City and lost 5-1 to the Sooners in the tourney title game.

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Coach Mike White was pleased to see that Texas got back to playing its brand of ball over the last three games. It could be that the Sooners did the Horns a favor with that win.

A wake-up call, perhaps?

“We just didn’t play like ourselves,” White said. “We had gone down that stretch where we had to win like 12 to 15 games in a row to be able to capture that title. And I thought we played really free. We were really aggressive and we kind of sat back and let things happen.”

That small lapse appears to be a small blip on the radar given how the Horns put it all together over the weekend. They blasted out 36 hits — 12 in each game — and six found the parking lot outside the stadium. Texas is 21-1 in its last 22 games.

The last one pretty much settled the issue early as third baseman’s Mia Scott’s no-doubter sailed over the right field wall for a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the second. Northwestern starter Ashley Miller, the Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, never stood a chance. Scott’s second homer in as many days put the Wildcats on ice as the Horns slowly began to think about this weekend’s super regional showdown at McCombs with future SEC rival Texas A&M.

So much support these days

Osterman put this program on the map and she did it a time when the Horns weren’t hitting the cover off the ball. How many times did we check the box scores to see that Cat had done it again.

Of course on most occasions she had, even if the offense wasn’t stellar.

In 2005 and 2006 in the regional round, the Horns went 6-0 and Osterman did not allow a run. Texas scored 15 runs in those six games, one more than the 2024 crew scored in Saturday’s 12-run win over the Wildcats.

Want another one? During the Osterman era, which was 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006 — she took a redshirt in 2004 for the Olympics — the Horns never scored in double figures in any of the 68 games.

By comparison, White’s Horns scored at least 10 runs in nine conference games this season.

Osterman was in the booth working the game with play-by-play announcer Alex Loeb and I couldn’t resist asking her how she would have fared with an offense like this one at her back.

“For a pitcher, this kind of offensive support allows you to be more free,” said the three-time national player of the year. “The pressure is a little less. Personally, I liked the pressure, but this kind of offense allows you to mix your pitches up a little better and even throw pitches that might not be your bread and butter.”

For that reason, Osterman rarely threw off-speed pitches because one mistake could have meant a loss.

“This offense allows you to experiment and even rest because there are longer innings,” she said. “I love it because Texas is known for pitching and hitting now.”

A first national title in program history is possible though the Horns will have to go through a gantlet which includes the Sooners to get there.

They can rest assured that this is easily the most balanced team in school history. Some way, somehow, the Horns can find a way to get a win.

Two more wins to OKC.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Golden: With legend Cat Osterman watching, Horns are on torrid pace