There may be a new dynasty brewing in the college softball world. For the second straight year, Texas defeated Texas Tech in the Women’s College World Series Finals.
Following their 4-1 victory Thursday night, the Longhorns are just the fifth softball team in NCAA history to win back-to-back national championships.
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Also for a second straight year, pitcher Teagan Kavan was named the WCWS Most Outstanding Player, becoming the first player to win the award twice in a row. She pitched a complete game with six strikeouts in Texas’s 7-3 Game 1 win on Wednesday, then came on in relief to close out Game 2, striking out five batters in two innings of work. She also became the first pitcher with two shutouts and two saves in one WCWS.
“It’s a team thing,” Kavan told ESPN’s Holly Rowe after the game. “It’s all our coaches, it’s all these girls right here. I’m just so happy and I’m so proud to be a Longhorn.”
"I'm so proud to be a Longhorn." 🥹
Teagan Kavan and Katie Stewart join @sportsiren after @TexasSoftball wins its second-straight WCWS 🤘 pic.twitter.com/BAoy7382pA
— ESPN (@espn) June 5, 2026
this team. this moment. 🤘🥹#HookEm pic.twitter.com/Q6hDhDys0h
— Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) June 5, 2026
The junior from Des Moines, Iowa, finished the season with 260 strikeouts, a 28-6 record, 2.33 ERA, and five saves in 228.2 innings pitched. She’s been named a second-team All-American each of the past two years.
Kavan, along with several of her teammates, has also spoken openly about her faith in God.
“Jesus is steady to me,” Kavan said in a recent interview with the University of Texas Catholic Center. “He’s consistent and always shows up when you don’t think He’s going to.”
Texas has made it a tradition for each player to play the game in honor of a teammate. Kavan was one of several who told ESPN that she was playing Thursday night for senior catcher Reese Atwood, saying she wanted to send her battery mate out with another title.
Also a believer, Atwood — who hit a double and was intentionally walked twice on Thursday — provided leadership on the field as well as off.
“Something that we read recently was, ‘It’s not failure if God had intended it,'” she told the UT Catholic Center. “Even our failures are bringing us to something greater.”
She said her favorite part of playing softball isn’t the game itself.
“It’s the people that God has brought into my life, the friendships that I’ll have for the rest of my life, the people who I’ve been able to walk with in faith,” she said.
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The Longhorns have also been paced by senior right fielder Ashton Maloney, consistently one of the best hitters on the team both last year and this season, and a Gold Glove winner along with Atwood. Maloney went 1-for-2 with a triple and two RBIs in Game 1, then followed it up going 1-for-3 with a run scored in Game 2.
She appeared on Sports Spectrum’s “What’s Up” podcast last summer and said she grew both as a player and a believer during her time at Texas. A big reason for that stems from tearing her ACL just two weeks before arriving on campus.
“I felt very disconnected from my team,” she said on the podcast. “I felt like I had lost a large part of my identity.”
Having a strong support system and being close with her teammates helped her grow throughout her college career, she said. Many of them attend church together, and they helped keep Maloney accountable in her walk, including encouraging her to go to church even on days when she didn’t feel like it.
“Those are the days you need to go even more because the Lord is calling you those days,” she said on the podcast. “So just understanding that my teammates are going to be there; I need to be there for them too. That helps us grow our bond — not only on the field, but off the field as well.”
While significant pieces like Atwood and Maloney will be leaving the team, Kavan and star slugger Katie Stewart have one more year of eligibility, and their return to Austin would put Texas square in the conversation for a three-peat. The spotlight on the program will only get brighter after winning another title, but that may not be such a bad thing, Kavan said.
“It’s a gift that we have a platform and that we get to do what we love on the highest level and live out our dreams; it’s so surreal,” she told UT Catholic Center. “It’s a gift from God, and the fact that I get to do it surrounded by the best people (is great).”
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