Teagan Kavan cements legacy as WCWS pitching great as Texas softball repeats as champ
· Yahoo Sports
The Women’s College World Series field was loaded with elite pitchers. Some who will be remembered as all-time greats in the sport.
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NiJaree Canady, Jordy Frahm, Karlyn Pickens, Jocelyn Briski. Names that every softball fan knows.
Yet when the celebratory confetti drifted to the dirt of Devon Park on Thursday night, it was Texas’ Teagan Kavan with the “National Champions” hat on her head and the Most Outstanding Player trophy in her hand — for the second year in a row.
A day after pitching second-seeded Texas to a victory in the opening game of the best-of-three WCWS championship series, Kavan was asked to close Game 2. She slammed the door shut, retiring all six batters she faced, five by strikeout, including the final one that set off the championship celebration in a 4-1 win over No. 11 Texas Tech.
“I kept telling myself in the bullpen, I was like, this is why we work so hard, for this moment, this exact moment right here, so just trust myself,” Kavan said. “But the hard work is over when you get here. It's just going out and playing free.
“So I think with these girls behind me, I feel like I can do anything. That's where it comes from.”
Texas coach Mike White wanted Kavan fully rested if a Game 3 was necessary. So on Thursday, he started senior Citlaly Gutierrez, who allowed just one run and bailed the Longhorns out of a bases-loaded jam with what White called “the biggest out in the whole tournament.”
But after Texas took a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning, Kavan began to warm up. She entered in the sixth, and the title was all but won.
All of the pitchers named above, plus a couple others, came into the WCWS with better season statistics than Kavan. Lower earned-run averages. Higher strikeout rates.
But there’s something about Kavan when she steps to the center of softball’s biggest stage.
“Today when she came in and she smelled the win, she was not giving that up,” White said. “She was a killer. She was an assassin out there.
“You've got to take your hat off to a kid like that, who can do that in this situation in those moments, with that many fans watching you and all that pressure. She felt no pressure. She just wanted to do it for her team.”
Kavan topped all the best in this year’s field, but she elevated herself above the greats of the sport in one unique way.
She’s the first player to ever be named Most Outstanding Player of the WCWS since the award was created in 1995.
None of the UCLA or Arizona legends of the late 1990s, or the Oklahoma superstars of the last decade accomplished that.
“One of the elite talented pitchers,” Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco said. “Every once in a while, I felt like, especially early in the middle of the year maybe, she wasn't getting the respect she probably deserved. In the postseason, she steps up so big every year.
“If you know softball, you know how rare and special a talent she is.”
Kavan pitched 33 ⅓ innings, finishing with a 1.47 ERA, 30 strikeouts and three walks. Of the seven games she pitched in, she earned the win in four of them, and saves in two others.
Last year, she threw 31 ⅔ innings, allowing three runs (all unearned) with 18 strikeouts and six walks. Over six games, she had four wins and a save.
“She's unbeatable when she is here at the World Series,” Texas catcher Reese Atwood said. “She goes out there, and she throws her absolute best games in the hardest moments to do so.”
When the week began, she might have been a few notches down the list of college softball’s best pitchers.
But Canady, Frahm and Pickens are seniors. Same for others like Maya Johnson at Belmont and Ruby Meylan at Oklahoma State, All-Americans who fell short of the WCWS.
Kavan is a junior, and though White has some holes to fill in the offseason to prepare for a shot at a three-peat, he knows he’ll have Kavan in the circle yet again.
She’ll be one of the faces of the sport, and maybe she’ll be near the top of those conversations for All-America honors, even Player of the Year awards.
Or maybe she’ll pull her facemask down and go to work like she’s done the last two seasons, forgetting about the individual accolades and focusing only on the national championship trophy once again.
“I think that’s what champions do,” White said. “They find a bigger thing than themselves.”
Scott Wright covers Oklahoma State athletics for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Scott? He can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ScottWrightOK. Support Scott’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com or by using the link at the top of this page.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Teagan Kavan, Texas softball topple Texas Tech for NCAA softball title