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All the plot twists of the last three weeks of softball just brought us all the way back to Texas vs. Texas Tech.
Alabama was the most well-rounded team. Tennessee had the wicked pitching. UCLA had the best bats we’ve ever seen. Nebraska had Jordy Frahm and all the momentum in the world. None of them could prevent a national title series rematch.
Neither could early-round adversity. Texas has played six must-win elimination games; Tech has played four elimination games, gone to extra innings three times and overcome an eight-run, seventh-inning deficit. These two teams were destined to reach the finals again, even though they spent most of the last three weeks convincing us it was going to be anyone else but them.
The biggest series in the sport starts Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. Here’s everything you need to know.
Coach: Mike White
Postseason Path (9-2): def. Wagner (9-1), def. Wisconsin (9-0), def. Baylor (7-0), lost to Arizona State (1-4), def. Arizona State (4-3), def. Arizona State (5-0), lost to Tennessee (3-6), def. Mississippi State (4-0), def. Nebraska (3-1), def. Tennessee (5-2), def. Tennessee (4-0)
The champs can’t really relax until they can taste blood in their mouth. After an almost perfect start to the season, Texas lost seven of 11 games in late March and April before rallying to roll to the SEC tournament. The Longhorns lost the first game of the super regionals to Arizona State before winning two straight, then they lost to Tennessee in the first game of the Women’s College World Series before winning four straight to reach the championship series anyway.
The Horns are 6-2 over the past two weeks — 0-2 in non-elimination games and 6-0 in elimination games. And not even that fully describes their clutch play: They trailed Arizona State 3-2 in the sixth inning of their first super regional elimination game until Victoria Hunter hit a two-run, pinch-hit homer; against Nebraska in their second WCWS elimination game, they trailed 1-0 in the sixth before Katie Stewart’s three-run bomb gave them the advantage; in the first of two wins over Tennessee on Monday, they were tied 1-1 in the fifth when Stewart homered again, and even up 5-2 in the seventh they allowed the Volunteers to load the bases before Teagan Kavan saved the day with a strikeout of Elsa Morrison.
Texas doesn’t deliver what it needs until the moment it needs it.
Postseason batting leaders:
1B Katie Stewart: 32 at-bats, 5 HRs, 14 RBIs, 1.469 OPS
CF Kayden Henry: 38 at-bats, 3 HRs, 7 RBIs, 3 stolen bases, 1.136 OPS
SS Viviana Martinez: 33 at-bats, 7 RBIs, 1.008 OPS
Among the eight WCWS teams, Texas has the fourth-best OPS in the NCAA tournament, but they’re pretty far behind the top three (UCLA, Arkansas, Texas Tech). They’ve chased a lot of pitches outside the zone, and they’ve left themselves with a lot of late work to do. But they’ve also gotten home runs from seven different players and extra-base hits from 10. And when the must-win games began in Oklahoma City, Katie Stewart shifted into a different gear.
Over the past three games, Stewart is 5-for-10 with three homers. How she caught up to that impossible Karlyn Pickens low heater to drive it that far, I have no idea.
Stewart, Martinez and designated player Hannah Wells went a combined 12-for-20 on Monday with five runs scored, five RBIs and Stewart’s two homers. The lineup has had some holes in the postseason — and we’re still waiting for 2025 title series hero Reese Atwood to get going at the plate — but the right players raised their game at the right time.
Postseason pitching:
Teagan Kavan: 6-2, 50⅓ innings, 1.25 ERA, 0.488 OPS allowed
Citlaly Gutierrez: 2-0, 19⅔ innings, 2.14 ERA, 0.564 OPS allowed
Teagan Kavan, adrenaline junkie. Texas’ veteran ace allowed five earned runs in seven innings against Arizona State in the super regionals before pitching a Game 3 shutout. In OKC, she allowed three runs in three innings of the loss to Tennessee but responded by allowing one earned run in 21⅓ innings afterward. She got her fourth save of the year in the first game against Tennessee on Monday, then got her 28th win of the season with a brilliant, two-hit, 10-strikeout shutout in the decider. She threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 23 batters and never allowed anyone to see anything good. The more important the game is, the better she pitches. Just like last year.
Coach: Gerry Glasco
Postseason Path (9-2): def. Marist (10-3), def. Ole Miss (10-9), def. Ole Miss (14-2), def. Florida (10-8), lost to Florida (2-10), def. Florida (16-7), def. Mississippi State (8-0), lost to Tennessee (1-2), def. UCLA (8-7), def. Alabama (5-4), def. Alabama (2-0)
In last year’s run to the title series, Texas Tech won its first eight postseason games by a combined 38-11. NiJaree Canady pitched 45 of the last 48 innings in this stretch and at one point won six straight games despite Tech giving her three or fewer runs of support.
This time around, with a lineup of reinforcements and a pair of aces — Canady has shared the spotlight with former UCLA ace Kaitlyn Terry — Tech has done things the hard way. The Red Raiders have allowed 52 runs in 11 games, but they’ve scored 86. They came back from 8-0 down against Ole Miss in the seventh inning (!!) in the second game of their regional, and they’ve somehow managed to go 3-1 in games in which they’ve allowed seven or more runs.
The Red Raiders lost a pitchers’ duel to Tennessee when Terry allowed a home run in the bottom of the ninth, then beat UCLA in a Sunday elimination game despite Canady giving up a game-tying home run to Jordan Woolery in the bottom of the seventh. In the first of two wins over Alabama on Monday, Terry gave up a game-tying, two-run homer in the top of the seventh, but Canady closed out the inning, and Mia Williams hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the seventh.
Tech got to within one game of the championship series despite its pitching, which was comfortably the worst of any WCWS team. But with everything on the line in Monday night’s decider, Canady took over. She threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 25 batters, allowed two hits and four total baserunners and outdueled Alabama’s great Jocelyn Briski to send Tech back to the title series.
Postseason batting leaders:
2B Mia Williams: 35 at-bats, 4 HRs, 12 RBIs, 2 stolen bases, 1.448 OPS
RF Lauren Allred: 32 at-bats, 3 HRs, 12 RBIs, 1.405 OPS
1B Jackie Lis: 33 at-bats, 4 HRs, 16 RBIs, 1.197 OPS
3B Taylor Pannell: 37 at-bats, 4 HRs, 11 RBIs, 2 stolen bases, 1.085 OPS
After last year’s inconsistent offensive performance, Tech manager Gerry Glasco (and his boosters) spent big to upgrade the bats, and they succeeded beyond all manageable expectations. Williams, a Florida transfer, has been Tech’s postseason MVP; Lis, a Southern Illinois transfer, has provided vital pop; Pannell, a Tennessee transfer, has provided both crafty batting and excellent defense; and Terry doubled in the go-ahead run against her former team on Sunday. Meanwhile, holdovers like Allred and center fielder Mihyia Davis, the best baserunner for either finalist, have thrived with more opportunistic chances at the plate.
This lineup was a liability last year, but it’s the reason they are where they are this time.
Postseason pitching:
NiJaree Canady: 7-1, 36 innings, 4.28 ERA, 0.781 OPS allowed
Kaitlyn Terry: 2-1, 29⅔ innings, 3.78 ERA, 0.861 OPS allowed
For better or worse, Glasco has tried to get clever of late. Starting with the deciding game of the super regionals, he has constantly shuffled between Canady and Terry, rotating the defensive alignment (and the designated player spot) to keep them both in the game but changing who’s on the mound at any given time; a few of the switches appear to have been matchup-based, but he has mostly made changes right after one pitcher gets hit hard. Tech has obviously won enough to get here, but it’s not clear the approach was better than actually riding with one arm or the other. Tech still gave up seven runs in five innings against Florida, seven in nine against UCLA and four in the first game against Alabama.
1. Will Glasco keep the platoon going? In the decider against Alabama on Monday night, Canady took the game out of Glasco’s hands by simply not getting hit.
Glasco went wild in four other games, though, changing pitchers 16 combined times in the Florida decider and in WCWS games against Tennessee, UCLA and Alabama. When Terry got hit hard early by Florida, he switched to Canady, then made five more changes. When Canady gave up three runs in 2⅓ innings against UCLA, Terry came in for 3⅔ innings, but he then made another five changes over the final three innings.
Since Canady is a righty and Terry is a lefty, you could make the case that, if you can get away with flipping back and forth, it would make sense to do so. But Glasco seems to do it primarily for the purposes of asking one pitcher to save the other after a bad at-bat. It’s a unique approach, and again, Tech won three of the four games when he went relief-wild, and it’s fair to think he might do something similar against Texas. But he’ll have another issue to consider against the Horns’ remarkably balanced lineup: The top of Texas’ order is typically Henry (lefty), Stewart (righty), Martinez (lefty), Atwood (righty), Hannah Wells (righty) and Kaiah Altmeyer (lefty). Terry is better against lefties than Canady, so there’s a chance Glasco goes even wilder with the switches to account for this balance.
2. Can Texas batters lay off the outside pitches? Canady’s complete-game masterpiece against Alabama on Monday was both reassuring and enlightening. Whereas she has thrown almost 50% rise balls against both righties and lefties this year, she went even heavier on the rise balls against lefties (63%) but leaned heavily on her curve ball (55%) against righties. And in both instances, she was so accurate throwing strikes at batters’ knees that she was able to get ahead in the count and get them to chase outside balls.
Canady vs. righties TruMediaCanady vs. lefties TruMediaObviously Texas’ offense is excellent, but Horns hitters do chase pitches. They have swung at the first pitch 38.3% of the time in the NCAAs (most of any WCWS team) and chased balls outside the strike zone 31.7% of the time (second most). Now, they’re pretty good at making contact — and in last year’s title series swung on a pitch intentionally thrown outside the zone — but as Alabama manager Patrick Murphy put it during an in-game interview on Monday, if you’re intentionally expanding your strike zone against Canady, you’re probably in trouble. The Crimson Tide certainly were.3. Does anything matter besides Big Game Kavan? Granted, last year’s Tech lineup wasn’t this year’s, but for all the headlines Canady has garnered in her career, it was Kavan who carried her team to the title last season. Her 2025 WCWS run was an all-timer — she shut out Florida, allowed only two runs (zero earned) against Oklahoma and outdueled Canady in Game 1 with a seven-inning, three-hit, one-run (zero earned) performance. And when she allowed some runs in the decider against Tech, it was okay: Texas was already up 10-0.Kavan has been just as good in the important moments this time around. And with some of the best velocity of her career, she absolutely mowed Tennessee down on Monday afternoon. She has suffered some random duds this season — she allowed five or more runs six times — but the next time it happens in a must-win situation, it’ll be the first time since basically 2024. Canady has been the face of the sport, due to both her dominance and her impact as the first million-dollar softballer. But Kavan has a legitimate chance to become a two-time, title-winning ace and a legend in her own right.PredictionTexas Tech in 3. On Monday night, we saw the Canady that almost single-handedly carried Tech to the title last year. The Red Raiders just needed a hair more offense in 2025, and they have it this time around. Their pitching has been shockingly poor in the postseason, and it hasn’t mattered. If we assume that Canady dominates one of three games and Tech wins more of a track meet in one of the other two, that’s all they’ll need. Be it Cavan, Atwood and company or Canady, someone’s career is ending in legendary fashion. I picked Texas a year ago, but I’m going to lean the other way this time.
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