OKLAHOMA CITY — Gerry Glasco is a man who loves to tinker, changing up the Texas Tech softball lineup almost on a whim in order to squeeze whatever juice he can out of the team.
He moved some more chess pieces around before the first game of the Women’s College World Series finals. Kaitlyn Terry was the starting pitcher rather than NiJaree Canady (which wasn’t all that surprising) but Victoria Valdez was the catcher and Desirae Spearman, who’s had one hit in the last month, in left.
The moves on the surface seem innocent. In tandem, they created a gamble Texas Tech could ill afford to take. Logan Halleman is the superior defender in left, but she and Valdez (who has struggled at the plate this season) shouldn’t be in the battery together.
Again, it all made sense. It just had to work.
It didn’t. Mihyia Davis’ first-inning home run off Teagan Kavan was the little offense Texas Tech could muster much of the game. Katie Stewart rocketed a two-run homer off Terry in the bottom half and that was all the Longhorns really needed.
But deja vu set in. Just like Texas did in Game 3 of last year’s championship series, the Longhorns put up five runs in the first, the last two coming after Spearman misread a fly ball (that would’ve been the third out), resulting in a two-run triple for the Longhorns.
After that, it was mostly playing out the strings. Kavan is good enough as is, though the Red Raiders reverted to some habits seen through the last month of the season. The energy seemed zapped before Texas Tech got back into the dugout. By the third, Glasco had to pull the safety hatch: spelling both Terry and Canady from the circle and inserting Samantha Lincoln, who has struggled in the back half of the 2026 campaign.
That, too, made sense and did pay off. Lincoln kept the game within reach, allowing just two runs in relief. Mia Williams used a quick pep talk from Glasco to hit a two-run home run to keep the Red Raiders within shouting distance. Ultimately, Texas walked away with a 7-3 win to take early control of the best-of-three series.
Would it have made a difference if it was Halleman in left rather than Spearman to start the game? Hard to say. Kavan has this uncanny nature of going Super Siyan in the postseason, morphing from a pretty good pitcher to an otherworldly arm in the circle. Her ability to paint the outside corners against right-handed batters set the likes of Williams (until the fifth) and Jasmyn Burns chasing pitches further out of the zone than necessary. Hitters want to hit. Hard to blame them there.
Momentum is a very real thing. Texas Tech has had stretches where it badly struggles without things working in its favor early on. That seemed to subside once the Red Raiders got to Oklahoma City. Deficits or early runs given up haven’t spelled doom like games against Utah and Texas State had. If Spearman had made the right read in left, corralled the third out, and kept it a one-run game, who knows what could’ve happened?
Except hypotheticals (like that Texas Tech-Texas football game in Week 1 that’s never going to happen) are usually worthless. Facts are all that matter right now, and the fact is the Red Raiders have to dig deep once again to win the national championship.
Perhaps the proverbial punting of Game 1 can be prosperous for Texas Tech. The Longhorns didn’t get too good a look at Terry and Canady, and the pitchers will have some extra rest to push them to the finish line. Kavan will surely be back in the circle for the Longhorns. Did the Red Raiders learn their lessons the first time?
In Game 1, the Red Raiders looked very much like that team where it was hard to figure they’d be in Oklahoma City at all. They seemed to shed those negatives and hone in on the positives of what made the team so great for much of the season, just to get back to the finals.
Can they do it again, get to Friday and finish the job? Texas Tech has never lost back-to-back games in Glasco’s tenure, and it just won two games in one night against Alabama to get to the championship. Everything is in play at this point, so long as the Red Raiders avoid tinkering too much the rest of the way.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech softball its own worst enemy in first WCWS finals game | Giese
Reporting by Nathan Giese, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Nathan Giese, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | USA TODAY Network
