The Texas Longhorns softball team defeated Texas Tech, 4-1, on Thursday night and the Longhorns are your back-to-back Women’s College World Series Champions!
“This one is sweet,” Texas head coach Mike White said after the game with tears in his eyes. “It just came from all of the players, their heart. They’ve worked their tails off the whole time. We had players step up when they needed to step up and they did.”
One of those players who stepped up was pitcher Citlaly Gutierrez, who outdueled Texas Tech’s star pitcher Nijaree Canady. Gutierrez picked up the win with 4 ⅓ innings, giving up only three hits and one run.
Tech’s one run came in the third center fielder Mihyia Davis singled, stole second and then scored on another single.
At that point, Texas wasn’t even getting good at bats. Canady was inducing a lot of weak grounders and pop outs.
But things changed in the top of the fifth.
Kaiah Altmeyer led off the inning with a single to the left-center gap. Ashton Maloney got another quick single and Texas had runners at first and second with no outs. It looked like Texas might waste the opportunity when Jaycie Nichols grounded out and Kayden Henry popped out to left. That’s when Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco decided he would walk Katie Stewart to load the bases.
Big mistake.
Junior shortstop Viviana Martinez has been one of Texas’ most consistent hitters all year. Vivi didn’t kill the ball, but she put it in a place that forced Texas Tech shortstop Hailey Toney to rush a throw to third and the ball went wide. Not one, but two runs scored and Texas finally had the lead.
That would be all the runs Texas would need as Texas Tech wouldn’t get another baserunner the rest of the game.
Texas head coach Mike White’s faith in Gutierrez continued and she came out with a lead and got a quick one, two, three inning.
Then White called in star pitcher Teagan Kavan to come on in relief in the sixth and she got a one, two, three inning as well.
“Teagan Kavan was nails,” White said. “Once we got that run, the one run lead, that was all she needed.”
The Horns did pick up some insurance runs in the seventh with a leadoff homer by Kayden Henry.
And then a couple of more hits put Leighann Goode up to the plate. Her bat has been absolutely frigid in Oklahoma, but she came up big in the biggest spot to put Texas up 4-1.
Kavan came back in the bottom of the seventh and it was, yep, you guessed it, another 1, 2, 3 inning to close it out.
“This is what I’ve dreamed of,” Kavan told ESPN’s Holly Rowe when asked what she was thinking about as she jogged into the game from the bullpen. “I just want to have my team’s back. I love them so much. I’m just so happy.”
Texas Tech’s star pitcher, Canady, finished her career with a 63-14 record. Six of those losses came against Texas.
Teagan Kavan already has a 76-14 record, two national championships and two WCWS MVPs.
