LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Fresh off a 50-5 regular season, capped off by NiJaree Canady\u2019s first-ever perfect game on Senior Day Saturday, the Red Raiders are now ready to defend their Big 12 title- in what they hope is their first of two trips to Oklahoma City, which will host the Women\u2019s College World Series later this month. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a privilege to try to repeat what we did last year, it\u2019s a privilege to be here at Texas Tech. It\u2019s a privilege to have a team that the expectations are even as high or higher than it was a year ago, it just shows you what a tremendous privilege we have in front of us, and we just attack it,\u201d said Texas Tech head softball coach Gerry Glasco, \u201cAnd we don\u2019t take anything for granted. We don\u2019t assume anything. We know we have to go to war to get it.\u201d <\/p>\n
The top-seeded Red Raiders, who already won their second-straight Big 12 regular season title, will begin defending their tournament title 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Devon Park against No. 8 Baylor, a team they took two of three games from last week. Canady knows how hard she and her teammates have worked in the last few days and remains optimistic while heading into this week\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re all feeling good. We\u2019ve had practices, but I feel like we\u2019re all feeling good. Of course, I feel like a whole new season\u2019s starting in a couple of days,\u201d Canady said. \u201cSo, I feel like the biggest thing is just for trying, like obviously building on what we\u2019ve learned this past season, but like I said, it\u2019s a whole new season.\u201d <\/p>\n
Canady has recorded more than a thousand strikeouts and 90 wins in her career and is the only current NCAA player to have done so. Two days after her perfect game, she was selected by the Texas Volts as the No. 2 overall pick in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League draft. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like there\u2019s always a little pressure (to win second-straight Big 12 title), by just having the No. 1 seed, there\u2019s always that expectation,\u201d she said. \u201cBut again, pressure\u2019s a privilege. It\u2019s a good thing to have the number one seed.\u201d <\/p>\n
The winner of Thursday\u2019s Texas Tech-Baylor game will await the winner of No. 4 UCF and No. 5 Kansas. That matchup will open the tournament and is set for 11 a.m. <\/p>\n
No. 2 Oklahoma State will play No. 7 Utah 5 p.m., and No. 3 Arizona will take on No. 6 Arizona State 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Coach Glasco feels good about the Red Raiders\u2019 approach in this tournament, especially with so many girls on the roster having big game experience. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re loaded with a lineup. It\u2019s a veteran lineup this year. We got regional experience, super-regional experience, conference tournament experience, and most importantly, World Series experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a huge advantage, the maturity and experience that they have in the past and things that they can fall back on, and then things that they can use to help the other teammates that haven\u2019t had those experiences; they\u2019d be even better. It\u2019s a huge advantage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Earlier Wednesday, Glasco was named the \u201cBig 12 Coach of the Year\u201d for the second consecutive year. With Saturday\u2019s 8-0 win over Baylor, Glasco is now 67-0 in conference series going back to his time at Louisiana. Canady was announced as the \u201cBig 12 Co-Pitcher of the Year\u201d. <\/p>\n
Pitcher\/utility player Kaitlyn Terry, who continues to emerge as one of the best two-way players in the country (.476 batting average, 1.39 ERA with 21-1 pitching record) was named to the All-Big 12 Team along with infielder Mia Williams and utility player Jackie Lis.<\/p>\n
KCBD Sports\u2019 Shelbie Rhodes will be in OKC with coverage from the Big 12 tournament.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Fresh off a 50-5 regular season, capped off by NiJaree Canady\u2019s first-ever perfect game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3689,104137,87486,104139,78712,46014,104138,168,170,169,66700,13428,6378,1769,415,56529,873],"class_list":["post-282719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-baylor-bears","tag-baylor-softball","tag-big-12-softball","tag-big-12-softball-tournament","tag-big-12-tournament","tag-college-softball","tag-devon-park","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-ncaa-softball","tag-okc","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-texas-tech","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","tag-texas-tech-softball","tag-texas-tech-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}