Austin, TX
Live: No. 1 Texas softball faces Texas A&M in Game 2 of NCAA Tournament super regional
Texas A&M survived a wild opening to its super regional against Texas on Friday, winning 6-5 in the first game of the best-of-three series. Texas A&M (44-13), the No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament, will try to qualify for the Women’s College World Series by eliminating the No. 1 Longhorns (50-8) in the second game at 4 p.m. today at McCombs Field.
More: As expected, Texas and Texas A&M softball delivers big hits, drama and fireworks | Bohls
Can Texas stay alive on a blistering afternoon on its home turf? Follow along with the Statesman.
Middle 9: Texas 9, Texas A&M 8
Texas uses some small ball and speed to grab the one-run lead. Now, the season depends on the ballyhooed pitching staff. Looks like Texas coach Mike White will stick with Mac Morgan, who has yet to allow a base-runner in 1.1 innings.
Top 9: Texas 9, Texas A&M 8
Texas freshman Kayden Henry legs out an infield single, steals second, reaches third on a infield out by Bella Dayton and scores on a fielder’s choice by Ashton Maloney The throw home is errant but the speedy Henry would have scored anyway.
End 8: Texas 8, Texas A&M 8
No problems for Texas pitcher Mac Morgan, the third Longhorn to take the circle today. She doesn’t allow a base-runner and we go to the ninth. What’s at stake? Nothing less than a Women’s College World Series berth and arguably the best season in Texas history – excluding previous appearances in the WCWS, of course.
Middle 8: Texas 8, Texas A&M 8
The Longhorns leave two on against Texas A&M’s Emiley Kennedy. The last out by Joley Mitchell had warning-track power. The great Robert Cessna of the Bryan-College Station Eagle says Kennedy has thrown 233 pitches over the past two games. Unbelievable effort in this heat.
End 7: Texas 8, Texas A&M 8
Extra innings seems fitting for this series between No. 1 Texas and No. 16 Texas A&M, right? Both teams seem stunned after Aggie freshman Mya Perez tied the game with a 2-out, 3-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. Texas A&M ace Emiley Kennedy remains in the game; let’s see how Texas bounces back.
Bottom 7: Texas 8, Texas A&M 8
Texas A&M freshman Mya Perez just launched a 2-out, 3-run home run into the centerfield bleachers and we are suddenly tied and the crowd at McCombs Field is stunned. Mac Morgan is in the game to stop the bleeding and force extra innings.
Middle 7: Texas 8, Texas A&M 5
Bella Dayton blasts a 2-run homer into center field to give Texas pitcher Estelle Czech some breathing room, and the Longhorns are three outs away from a wild comeback and a game three against Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament’s super regionals on Sunday.
Middle 6: Texas 6, Texas A&M 5
An epic inning for Texas included an overturned call at home plate and RBI hits from Mia Scott, Vivi Martinez and Reese Atwood. Oh, and a stoppage in play because of an issue with the padded wall, some trash on the field, or perhaps both. Five runs, four hits and two errors from the Aggies. Wow. Does this series have even more late-game drama in it?
Top 6: Texas 6, Texas A&M 5
More drama in the sixth. Freshman Kayden Henry races home on a grounder from pinch hitter Vic Hunter and is called out on a tight play at the plate. But the sixth inning means an automatic replay, and the umpires overturn the call because of catcher impediment. Henry is safe, the Horns have two on with one out, and here comes Aggie pitcher Emiley Kennedy back in the game to try and finish what she started. Softball, folks; you can do that. Mia Scott greets Kennedy with an RBI single into center that scores Ashton Maloney, and Vivi Martinez follows with a 2-RBI shot. Once again, the Texas bats have heated up late in the game. Oh my.
And you remember that wardrobe malfunction years ago? We have a wall-pad malfunction, apparently. Play has stopped, players are off the field, workers are looking at the outfield wall like I do my car engine when I hear some strange knocking, and we’re in a delay.
The UT worker pulls out some duct tape, and we’re ready to play ball again. One on, one out for Reese Atwood, who promptly gives Texas the lead with a bloop single into left field.
End 5: Texas A&M 5, Texas 1
This feels familiar for anxious Texas fans, whose team trailed 6-0 on Friday after five innings. Texas rallied for five runs in the final two frames yesterday, so four runs is light work, right? Texas A&M will come back with spinballer Brooke Vestal this frame. It doesn’t need to be said, but No. 1 Texas has six outs to save its season against No. 16 Texas A&M and force a third and decisive game on Sunday.
Bottom 5: Texas A&M 5, Texas 1
Texas A&M’s Trinity Cannon loves her some McCombs Field. She played here at state for Forney High School and she just launched her third home run of this series series. This 2-run shot off Texas starter Teagan Kavan has the Longhorns on the ropes. That one screamed over the left-field wall. That’s all for Kavan, who gave up six hits and five runs in 5.1 innings. Senior Estelle Czech is now warming up for Texas.
Middle 5: Texas A&M 3, Texas 1
A brilliant play by Aggie shortstop Koko Wooley, who turns a double play to end a promising inning. But the Texas dugout isn’t happy, since replay shows Katie Stewart appeared safe at first. But Texas is out of challenges and the tension mounts for the No. 1 Longhorns, who are six outs from elimination.
Top 5: Texas A&M 3, Texas 1
Concerning how Aggie coach Trisha Ford will use her bullpen? We have our answer. Brooke Vestal, who has a nasty spinball, comes in for Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy to face Katie Stewart. There’s one on and no outs for Texas after Kennedy plunked Reese Atwood.
End 4: Texas A&M 3, Texas 1
Three up, three down for the first time since the first inning for Texas pitcher Teagan Kavan, who has settled into this game. Now it’s about the Longhorn bats against Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy – and it’s about how Aggie coach Trisha Ford will use her bullpen considering Kennedy has now thrown 11 innings in blistering heat over the past 24 hours.
Middle 4: Texas A&M 3, Texas 1
The Longhorns finally get on the board against Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy with a solo shot by Joley Mitchell, but Texas coach Mike White thinks it should be more. He signaled Bella Dayton to round third and go home on a shot into center field by Mia Scott, but Dayton holds at third as the throw to home goes wide. Vivi Martinez flies out for the third out in the next at-bat, and White gives Dayton an earful.
Top 4: Texas A&M 3, Texas 1
The Longhorns finally get to Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy. Leadoff hitter Joley Mitchell, the transfer from Notre Dame, launches a full-count homer over the left-field wall and screams in joy while rounding the bags. The other Longhorn hitters hope that stuff is contagious.
End 3: Texas A&M 3, Texas 0
A big challenge by Texas coach Mike White overturns a call and helps keep Texas within three runs. Trinity Cannon was originally called safe at second after a toss from third baseman Mia Scott, but replay calls her out by an inch. The Aggies end up stranding two. Huge escape by the Longhorns and starter Teagan Kavan, who has given up four hits, two walks and hit a batter in three innings.
Middle 3: Texas A&M 3, Texas 0
The first big mistake by the Aggies all series, but they survive the error. Second baseman Rylen Wiggins has a chance to turn a double-play that would have ended the inning but short-arms the throw to second into left field. Vivi Martinez is safe and Reese Atwood follows with a single to load the bases, but Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy fans Katie Stewart and gets Alyssa Washington to hit into a weak grounder. That inning could haunt Texas coach Mike White if the Horns don’t rally.
End 2: Texas A&M 3, Texas 0
A 2-run home run from centerfielder Jazmine Hill gives the Aggies the early lead, and the pressure begins to ratchet up on the No. 1 Longhorns, who will be eliminated from the NCAA Tournament with a loss. A 2-out RBI single by Kennedy Powell adds to the lead. Texas pitcher Teagan Kavan gave up three hits and two walks as well as a hit batter that frame, and only a nice throw by catcher Reese Atwood that caught Rylin Wiggins stealing helps keep it a three-run game. How long will Texas coach Mike White stick with Kavan?
Bottom 2: Texas A&M 2, Texas 0
Small ball? Not these Aggies. After Julia Cottrell draws a leadoff walk, Texas A&M coach Trisha Ford bypasses any thought of bunting her to second and Jazmine Hill launches a homer over the left-center wall. That’s the third Aggie homer of the series.
More: Texas and Texas A&M softball coaches were ejected Friday. Are they available for game two?
Middle 2: Texas A&M 0, Texas 0
Alyssa Washington draws a leadoff walk against Texas A&M starter Emiley Kennedy, but the Longhorns can’t make it count. They’ve now stranded three runners through the first two innings. A one-out, pop-out bunt attempt by freshman outfielder Kayden Henry really hurt Texas that inning.
End 1: Texas A&M 0, Texas 0
A much better start for Texas today. The Longhorns gave up three runs in the opening frame on Friday, but freshman pitcher Teagan Kavan retires the side in order today. She had lots of help from the outfield, including a diving catch by left-fielder Bella Dayton on a well-hit ball from Koko Wooley for the second out.
Middle 1: Texas A&M 0, Texas 0
Texas A&M ace Emiley Kennedy gives up several hard-hit balls but she escapes the inning without any damage. Shortstop Vivi Martinez had a 2-out hit for Texas and Reese Atwood followed with a walk, and a shot by freshman Katie Stewart drives centerfielder Jazmine Hill to the wall, but Hill makes the catch.
Texas pitcher Teagan Kavan will face Aggie ace Emiley Kennedy in game two
Less than 24 hours after earning a complete-game win, Texas A&M ace Emiley Kennedy will return to the circle and try to close out the series. Kennedy gave up six hits with five walks and five strikeouts in game one, so keep an eye on how big a toll those seven innings took on a field with temperatures over 140 degrees. Texas coach Mike White will counter with Teagan Kavan, the Big 12’s freshman of the year who leads the Longhorns in innings pitched (108.1), wins (18) and strikeouts (113) this season.
Two new initiatives are evaluating preschool curricula, making the case that programs designed to teach the youngest learners deserve the careful scrutiny that materials aimed at older students regularly undergo.
EdReports, the most well-known and prolific provider of curriculum reviews, released its first-ever set of pre-K evaluations on Tuesday. And last month, the nonprofit Student Achievement Partners published a set of preschool instructional materials guidelines, designed to give educators a framework for identifying high-quality resources.
These projects come as state-sponsored preschool program enrollment continues to climb, hitting a record high of almost 1.8 million students in 2025, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s annual report on the state of the field.
“This is a really meaningful moment for the field,” said Courtney Allison, the chief academic officer at EdReports. “We know that there are curriculum decisions already being made in pre-K, but independent evaluations have lagged behind.”
The EdReports reviews evaluate pre-K curricula in three main domains, or “gateways”: meeting the needs of a diverse student body; providing high-quality, developmentally appropriate content; and supporting effective teaching practices and implementation.
Reviews of three pre-K curricula—The Creative Curriculum, Frog Street Pre-K, and Every Child Ready—present mixed results, said Allison.
Pre-K curricula take a different shape than materials aimed at K-12 students. Three- and 4-year-olds aren’t using textbooks like their grade school peers. Most of the content of these programs for younger children comprises teacher materials, like read-alouds, and direction for educators—explaining how to facilitate conversations and set up activities.
“We were really pleased to see a lot of meaningful strengths, but the quality was uneven,” Allison said.
For the most part, these programs scored high in attention to language and literacy development, fostering social-emotional skills, and incorporation of play-based learning. But they were often scant on details about how to best support diverse learners, and lesson activities didn’t always align to stated learning goals.
Why districts are paying attention to preschool curricula
“Historically, there have been a wide variety of curriculum options for preschool and early education programs, and they weren’t all created equal,” said Alissa Mwenelupembe, the chief early-learning quality and research officer at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC. “There’s a need for people who are purchasing curricula to have a better sense of what they’re getting with their dollars.”
For the past decade, curriculum reviews have played a growing role in materials selection in K-12, with state departments of education considering third-party evaluations when developing lists of approved resources and districts consulting them as part of adoption processes. More than 1,800 school systems have used EdReports reviews, according to the organization.
But preschool materials haven’t received the same level of scrutiny, said Mwenelupembe.
“There’s not been one centralized place where you could go and learn what the research says, what you can expect to get from a curriculum,” she said.
As states launch and expand preschool programs, increasingly incorporating them into their K-12 systems, education leaders have started to ask for more guidance, said Carey Swanson, the literacy chief program officer at Student Achievement Partners, who led the work on the organization’s pre-K curriculum guidelines.
“Coherence is increasingly emerging as an important element of what needs to be in a strong educational system,” Swanson said.
Programs are strong in literacy, weaker in math, EdReports finds
Both EdReports and Student Achievement Partners say their tools draw on research in early-childhood development and learning, citing among other resources “A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum,” a 2024 report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine that analyzed more than 50 years of early-childhood education research.
EdReports’ pre-K reviews were conducted by a group of current and former pre-K teachers, curriculum specialists, instructional coaches, principals, and higher education faculty, said Shana Weldon, EdReports’ pre-K director.
The first of the reviews’ three gateways focuses on meeting the needs of all students. It evaluates whether programs are responsive to children from diverse backgrounds and include adaptations for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.
The second gateway covers content, including social and emotional development, language and literacy, math, science, and engineering, social studies, fine arts, physical and motor development, and cognitive development.
The third and final gateway examines implementation, evaluating whether the curriculum supports effective teaching practices, a child-friendly learning environment, and purposeful assessment.
Scoring works differently for EdReports’ preschool reviews from what it does for the rest of their evaluations. In K-12 reviews, programs are required to pass the first gateway in order to be scored on the rest. But for the preschool reviews, each program is scored on each gateway. That decision came in part from feedback from the field, said Weldon.
“I overwhelmingly heard, ‘We need all of this information to help us make better-informed decisions,’” she said.
The Student Achievement Partners guidelines outline similar criteria, though with more general recommendations rather than specific indicators. Major topics include developmentally appropriate learning environments, social-emotional development, math and literacy instruction, support for diverse learners, and engaging families as partners.
In the EdReports reviews, math emerged as an area for growth, said Weldon. While all three programs met expectations in language and literacy, two of the three only partially met expectations for math—the Creative Curriculum and Frog Street Pre-K.
While those programs incorporated math skills and activities, they didn’t always do so in a systematic progression that would build children’s math knowledge over time.
The Creative Curriculum, for example, includes lots of counting activities: Children bounce a ball and count how many times it bounces, count objects in front of them during different tasks, and model numbers out of clay. But those lessons don’t follow an intentional sequence that progressively builds counting ability, the review states.
Nicol Russell, the chief academic officer at Teaching Strategies, which publishes the Creative Curriculum, wrote in a statement to Education Week that the program is intentionally designed to give teachers flexibility to “meet each child where they are and move them forward.”
“One challenge in evaluating pre-K curriculum is the wide developmental range among 3- to 5-year-olds—children in the same classroom can be at very different points in their learning,” Russell wrote. “When curricula rely on a fixed, linear sequence built around ‘typical’ expectations, some children end up bored while others are frustrated. … A uniform sequence may be consistent, but it’s often not as effective for young learners.”
Jessica Hammond, the senior director of learning and development for Frog Street, echoed the point.
“It’s really important to note that in early childhood, learning is not linear,” she said, in an interview. “Children are all learning at various ages and stages. Teachers cannot always follow a progression that is explicit in preschool. In preparing children for kindergarten or school readiness, they have this distinct responsibility to ensure that they are giving every child what they need.”
Play vs. academics: a false dichotomy?
This back and forth raises a core question: How explicit, and how structured, should preschool instruction be? And how should that dovetail with preschool research that highlights the importance of play?
As state preschool programs have expanded, some advocates have worried that districts would push down kindergarten expectations into early-childhood classrooms, eschewing developmentally appropriate practices for a focus on academic preparation.
“It’s really important that the choice not be play-based learning or content learning,” said Swanson of Student Achievement Partners. A 3- or 4-year-old classroom shouldn’t look like a 2nd grade classroom, but curricula should still plan “purposeful” learning, she said.
“We know that careful attention to foundational [reading] skills matters in the early-childhood space,” Swanson said, as an example. But that would look like short activities designed to practice differentiating the sounds in words, or learning letters, she said—not extended lessons on decoding, which is a kindergarten skill.
Preschool should also intentionally target other abilities that lay the foundation for academics later on, like fine motor skills, said the NAEYC’s Mwenelupembe. Three- and 4-year-olds might not be sitting at desks writing, the same way a 7-year-old would—nor should they be, she said.
But they would play with clay, for example, or string beads in intentionally designed and structured activities, building the strength they will need to eventually hold a pencil, she said.
The EdReports criteria adopt a similar both/and framework, stating that materials should “intentionally leverage a mixture of direct instruction, open-ended, experiential, and play-based learning.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Austin police have arrested a suspect in connection with a shooting in East Austin that left half a dozen people injured Sunday night.
According to the Austin Police Department, the shooting happened around 8:26 p.m. on Sunday, April 26, in the 2000 block of East 12th Street.
Investigators said two men were involved in a physical altercation that escalated into an exchange of gunfire, striking several bystanders.
RELATED| Two injured in East Austin shooting, police investigating
Six people were treated at local hospitals for non-life-threatening gunshot injuries. Two were transported by Austin-Travis County EMS, while four others arrived at hospitals on their own. All victims are reported to be in stable condition.
Police said 24-year-old Wesley Earl Brown was later arrested in connection with the shooting. He has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and booked into the Travis County Jail.
Police said 24-year-old Wesley Earl Brown was later arrested in connection with the shooting. He has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and booked into the Travis County Jail. (Photo: APD)
Despite the arrest, detectives are continuing to investigate and are asking anyone who may have information, photos or video of the incident to come forward.
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact APD’s Aggravated Assault Unit at 512-974-4429 or submit an anonymous tip through Capital Area Crime Stoppers at 512-472-8477. A reward of up to $1,000 may be available for information leading to an arrest.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Austin, TX
East Austin Shooting: Several Casualties Reported, Suspect Still at Large | Chilling Video Surfaces
The incident took place late Sunday evening at the 2000 block of East 12th Street, near the intersection of 12th and Chicon Streets, in front of Sam’s BBQ, a popular local restaurant, triggering panic in the area after reports of gunfire at a gathering in a residential neighbourhood.
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