OKLAHOMA CITY — Teagan Kavan pitched a three-hitter, Katie Stewart hit her fourth home run in as many games, and reigning NCAA Division I softball national champion Texas opened the Women’s College World Series finals with a 7-3 victory over Texas Tech on Wednesday at Devon Park.
The second-seeded Longhorns (52-12), who won the Southeastern Conference tournament last month, can wrap up their second consecutive national championship with a victory in Game 2 of the best-of-three series Thursday night.
No. 11 seed Texas Tech (61-9), the Big 12 regular-season champion, took a 1-0 lead on a one-out solo home run by Mihyia Davis in the top of the first inning, but it didn’t last long as the Longhorns scored five runs in the bottom half to build a big lead in the opener. Stewart’s two-run homer that cleared the bleachers in center field and made it 2-1 was her seventh career home run in the WCWS.
The Longhorns tacked on three runs on a run-scoring infield single by Kaiah Altmeyer and a two-run triple by Ashton Maloney.
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), honored as the most outstanding player at last year’s WCWS, finished with six strikeouts, two walks and a hit batter.
Texas Tech’s Kaitlyn Terry (24-3) allowed four runs in 1 1/3 innings. Red Raiders 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 Texas Tech’s presumptive starter in the circle Thursday.
Texas defeated Texas Tech in three games in the 2025 WCWS finals. This is the first championship rematch since UCLA defeated California in 2003 and 2004, the last two title games before the best-of-three series was implemented.
The WCWS began last Thursday with eight title hopefuls competing in double-elimination play. Texas and Texas Tech each came through the losers bracket to reach the finals, with the Longhorns beating seventh-seeded Tennessee twice and the Red Raiders doing the same against top-seeded Alabama in the semifinal round Monday.