In 2025 Texas pulled off a historic playoff run enroute to their first ever national title. In the WCWS they defeated Oklahoma, who had won the previous 4 national titles consecutively, and Texas Tech, who in 2025 famously signed the first ever million dollar softball player in elite pitcher Nijaree Canady.
So how did Texas do it, and can they do it again?
When talking about how they did it, the first, and biggest reason, is ace pitcher Teagan Kavan. 28-5 last season with a 2.16 ERA and 230 strike outs. Kavan started 8 of 12 games during and 56 of 84 innings during the Longhorn’s playoff run. Kavan is not your typical national title winning ace pitcher because she does not have overpowering strikeout numbers. Instead, she manipulates hitters into swinging at pitches they probably shouldn’t, then lets the defense clean up the weak hits the result. Texas’s team strike outs during their 2025 playoff run was only 4.75 per game, which is pretty low for a team that wins it all, but they only allowed an average of 1.83 earned runs per game.
The second way Texas did it was with an overwhelming offense. During the 2015 playoffs the Texas offense produced 117 hits in 12 games or 9.75 per game, and 21 home runs in 12 games or 1.75 per game. And this is during the playoffs against the best pitching in the nation. The Texas offense put an exclamation point on their season by putting up 5 runs against the aforementioned Nijaree Canady in the decisive game 3 of the WCWS final and eventually won 10-4.
So can they do it again in 2026?
Is Teagan Kavan back? Yes. So is Texas’s #2 pitcher from last year Citaly Gutierrez along with freshman pitcher Hannah Wells (Max Preps 1st team All American and Player of the Year in Texas last year. And for good measure they poached sophomore pitcher Brenlee Gonzales from Texas Tech.
Is the offense back? Texas returns 4 of their 5 best hitters from last season including hits leader Ashton Maloney and home run leader Reece Atwood.
In 2025, Texas won the national title on the arm of Teagan Kavan and an overwhelming offense. Kavan’s back, as is the vast majority of the core of the offense. Can Texas win again in 2026? Hell yes.
