Texas Softball Needs a Big Game from Teagan Kavan to Force Super Regional Game 3

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON www.si.com/onsi/softball

The Texas Longhorns are on the brink of being eliminated from the NCAA tournament and missing the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2023. 

In Thursday night’s matchup against Clemson, right-handed ace Teagan Kavan and the defense behind her did not bring their A-game. With big hits and several miscues from Katie Stewart at shortstop, including one error, the Tigers took advantage and found themselves winning their first-ever Super Regional game in program history. 

Kavan, who has been on a low since Oklahoma rattled her in April when they recorded 12 hits and 14 runs over two games, gave up nine hits and six runs over five innings against Clemson. She didn’t have one perfect three-up, three-down inning and was pulled in the sixth inning.

She also struggled immensely during the SEC tournament and Regionals, giving up six runs to Ole Miss and four to Michigan. If the Longhorns want to survive another day, Kavan needs to be as sharp as a tack and her defense needs to have her back. 

The Longhorns were coming off an excellent Regionals experience, hitting non-stop home runs, but even the offense hardly showed up against Clemson. Reese Atwood failed to record a hit, and Ashton Maloney was thrown out at home in a huge double play. 

We’ve certainly seen Kavan and Texas rise to the occasion.

The Longhorns haven’t won the first game of a Super Regionals series since 2013. They lost the Super Regionals opening to Texas A&M just one year ago and made it all the way to the World Series championship series.