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OKLAHOMA CITY — Teagan Kavan pitched a complete game three-hitter, Katie Stewart hit her fourth home run in as many games, and Texas opened the Women’s College World Series championship round with a 7-3 victory over Texas Tech on Wednesday night.
The No. 2 seed Longhorns (52-12) can wrap up their second consecutive national championship with a victory in Game 2 on Thursday night.
Eleventh-seeded Texas Tech (61-9) took a 1-0 lead on a one-out solo home run by Mihyia Davis in the first inning.
The lead didn’t last long as Texas scored five runs in the bottom of the first. Stewart’s two-run homer that cleared the bleachers in center field gave Texas a 2-1 lead. It was her seventh career home run in the World Series, including one in each of the past four games.
“Just keeping my approach simple, really not overthinking anything in the box,” Stewart said. “And just not missing my pitch when I get it. That was really the whole approach I took to that at-bat.”
The Longhorns tacked on three runs on a run-scoring infield single by Kaiah Altmeyer and a two-run triple by Ashton Maloney, making it just the second time all season that Texas Tech had given up more than two first-inning runs.
“Stewart did what she’s been doing all year. She’s so clutch. She’s a great hitter having a great season,” Texas Teach coach Gerry Glasco said. “And then we just couldn’t get out of the inning. It felt like we were out of position over and over on defense. We had plays we could have made. … 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 – all of a sudden we go from [up] 1-0 to down 5-1. We just couldn’t get our momentum back.”
Kavan cruised into the fifth, not allowing another hit until Mia Williams went deep to straightaway center field for her 27th home run of the season, a two-run blast that made it 6-3.
Kavan (29-6), the WCWS Most Outstanding Player during the Longhorns’ run to the 2025 championship, finished with six strikeouts, two walks and a hit batter. She became just the seventh pitcher with 10 or more career WCWS wins.
“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,” she said of surrendering the early homer before settling in. “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.”
She certainly did that.
“Teagan worked her tail off for us,” Texas head coach Mike White said. “We played good defense behind her, continued to score a couple more runs, and Texas Tech never gave in. They made us work for it, and that’s a sign of a good team.”
Kaitlyn Terry (24-3) allowed four runs in 1⅓ innings.
Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco took NiJaree Canady, the two-time national pitcher of the year, out of the game after she faced six batters in relief in the first and second innings. She is the Red Raiders’ presumptive starter in Game 2.
“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,” Glasco said. “I want the matchup tomorrow.”
Texas defeated Texas Tech in three games in the 2025 championship round. This is the first championship rematch since UCLA defeated Cal in 2003 and ’04, the last two title games before the championship series was implemented.
Texas won the opener last year too before the Red Raiders bounced back to force a Game 3.
“Just keeping the foot on the gas,” Stewart said of what they learned from last year’s series. “It’s not going to come easy. They’re going to come back fighting harder than ever. So just making sure we’re on the attack first inning through the seventh inning, and making sure we stay focused, stay centered, and head in the game.”
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