OKLAHOMA CITY — NiJaree Canady didn’t mean to do that. Reese Atwood most certainly did.
Atwood hit a go-ahead, two-run single for Texas when Texas Tech’s ace was trying to walk her intentionally in the bottom of the sixth inning, and the Southeastern Conference’s Longhorns held on to beat the Big 12 champion Red Raiders 2-1 in Game 1 of the best-of-three championship finals Wednesday night at Women’s College World Series.
Teagan Kavan pitched a three-hitter for sixth-seeded Texas (54-11), which can secure its first NCAA Division I softball title with a victory Thursday night at OGE Energy Field at Devon Park.
Texas Tech (53-12), which was 8-0 in this year’s NCAA tournament before Wednesday’s loss, would have to win two straight games to earn the program’s first national championship in its first WCWS appearance. If necessary, the third game would be played Friday night.
Canady allowed four hits and struck out seven batters in another largely strong outing for the Red Raiders, but she has lost four of five career starts against Texas, with two of those defeats this season while pitching for Texas Tech and two for her previous school, Stanford, which she helped reach the WCWS semifinals the past two years.
This one came down to a pitch that Canady tried but failed to throw well out of the strike zone.
“I made that mistake,” she said. “I think that loss is on me, and I apologize to my team.”
Canady struck out the first two batters in the sixth but ran into trouble when Kayden Henry singled to left field and stole second base. Mia Scott reached on an infield single, moving Henry to third, and Scott took second without a throw.
With first base open and a 3-0 count on Atwood, catcher Victoria Valdez stood up to set a target well out of the zone for Canady, but the pitch came in letters high and the Texas batter hit a hard grounder through the left side of the infield.
“You’ve got to give credit to Atwood there,” Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco said. “She wanted to play ball. She wanted to make a play. She made a difference in the game at a time we were trying to take her out of the game.”
Texas Tech scored in the fifth inning with the help of an obstruction call. Pinch-hitter Logan Halleman reached on a fielding error and Atwood threw her out trying to steal second. Texas Tech challenged the call, and umpires ruled that shortstop Leighanne Goode had obstructed Halleman’s path to the bag.
Mihya Davis singled to right-center to drive in Halleman.
Kavan has not allowed an earned run in four WCWS appearances this year. Over 24 innings, she has allowed 12 hits and struck out 15 batters. She got 10 groundouts Wednesday night.
The Red Raiders threatened in the first, loading the bases with no outs. Canady, who leads Texas Tech with 11 homers, hit a grounder to third to start a 5-2-3 double play, and Alexa Langeliers grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning.
Texas Tech put the leadoff runner on in the seventh via an infield error to bring the go-ahead run to the plate, but Kavan got a flyout to left, a strikeout and a foulout to the first-base side to end the threat and the contest.
“Obviously it was a hard-fought game,” Texas coach Mike White said. “It could have gone either way, a game of inches. A lot of things happening for a 2-1 ballgame for sure. Fortunately we were able to come out on top of it.
“NiJaree Canady is just an extremely good pitcher. We have one on our side, too, with Teagan Kavan. They kind of matched toe to toe for quite a while, and it was good.”