2026 WCWS: Texas takes Game One of Champ Series against Texas Tech

Similar to her start against Nebraska, Teagan Kavan took an early punch and then brought out her best stuff. The reigning WCWS Most Outstanding Player continues to make a case for herself once again, throwing a gem in the Texas 7-3 win over Texas Tech in Game One of the WCWS Championship Series.

Kavan allowed a solo home run to Mihyia Davis, who hit her hard most of the night, in the first inning. Texas Tech didn’t record another hit until the fifth inning when Mia Williams lined a two-run home run to center field. The Red Raiders ended with three hits.

Kavan truthfully didn’t have her sharpest stuff, but still put together a very good outing. That’s what the best do. The Texas ace threw 115 pitches in her complete game effort. She once again mixed her rise and dropball to produce weak contact, producing eight groundouts and seven flyouts. Her off-speed also had good movement.

“I think it was kind of similar to our game against Nebraska when I had that home run early too,” Kavan said. “I know it’s not going to be a scoreless game and they’re probably going to get a run, good teams, good offenses, at some point. Just tell myself, oh, well, this is probably going to happen at some point. Just put my head down, do my work for the team, and try to keep us in the game as long as possible.

“The scout is only — only does so much. It depends once you get in the game and what’s working that night. I was able to change speeds enough tonight and then kind of live in different areas at different times. Yeah, I think I’ll go back and look and adjust for tomorrow and probably not do the same things again. Yeah, it’s huge against the offenses that we’re going to face — or that we are facing. 1 through 9, they have a lot of power, so it’s super vital to mix it up and use everything.”

Texas Tech struggled against Kavan all of last season, but Texas Tech head coach Gerry Glasco thought there was positives, including pushing up her pitch count.

“I thought we had some good at-bats,” he said. “As the game went on, I thought we saw her better. The one thing is we kept her out there longer. When Mia hit the home run, that kept it close enough that they couldn’t let her rest.

“I thought it was really important we kept the game close. I thought we saw the ball better and better as the game went on. I thought there was two 2-3 counts where we swung at ball four. If we could have took those pitches — that’s what a good pitcher does, she makes you swing at those pitches. Tip my hat to Teagan on her effort tonight. She was outstanding.”

Katie Stewart answered right back after the Davis home run. The SEC Player hit her fourth home run in as many games, giving Texas the lead and becoming the first player in WCWS history with four homers in four straight games. Viviana Martinez and Hannah Wells kept the rally going with two singles against Kaitlyn Terry.

STORM'S A STEWIN' ☔#HookEm pic.twitter.com/Wimn3R9Glv

— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) June 4, 2026

NiJaree Canady then entered the circle. She appeared to have rolled the final out off of Kaiah Altmeyer’s bat. Jackie Lis tried to backhand it and the ball bounced off her glove, allowing a run to score. The defensive miscues didn’t stop there. Ashton Maloney lined a ball to left field toward Desirae Spearman, who was starting there for the first time this postseason. Spearman took a step in, but quickly realized it was a mistake. The ball sailed over her head, and two more Texas runs scored to put the advantage at four in the first inning. Canady struck out Jaycie Nichols to end the frame.

Canady pitched a clean second inning before Glasco turned to Samantha Lincoln. The lefty pitched well for much of the contest. Texas added another run in the fourth. Nichols had an infield hit, and the Red Raiders decided to intentionally walk Stewart with two outs. Martinez hit a ball back up the middle that Hailey Toney gloved. The ball seemed to be stuck in her glove, and her throw to first base was late. Nichols scored after rounding hard around third base.

“We just couldn’t get out of the inning,” Glasco said. “It felt like we were out of position over and over on defense. We had plays we could have made. I don’t know exactly. I’ve got to watch it. You look at the scoreboard, and it said no errors, but I thought we misplayed several balls that we should have had outs on or we weren’t in the right position. That inning got away from us, and we’re quickly — all of a sudden we go from 1-0 to down 5-1. We just couldn’t get our momentum back.”

Texas tacked on another insurance run in the sixth on a sacrifice fly from Martinez, who finished with a pair of RBIs. Lincoln ended her outing, throwing 3.1 innings, allowing two runs on four hits.

“(I was) thinking about tomorrow and the next day,” said Glasco about his decision to go to Lincoln early. “We’ve got two games. I felt like I was going to give our offense the second and third inning to respond, and if we didn’t get anything, I didn’t feel like I could leave NiJa out there and let them look at her. I want the matchup tomorrow.

“I just thought it wasn’t — I just felt like it wasn’t a smart move for me to leave her out there in that moment, and it was a good opportunity to get Sam out there. She had good success against Texas last year in the final. She’s worked really hard, and I’ve been wanting to get her some World Series experience all along and see what she would do. I thought she was outstanding tonight.”

Texas will have a chance to secure its second straight WCWS Championship on Thursday, with Game 2 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. Canady or Terry will likely get the ball against Citlaly Gutierrez in hopes of pushing the series to Friday.