{"id":291753,"date":"2026-05-13T20:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/291753\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:35:09","slug":"ncaa-softball-tournament-is-teagan-kavan-ready-for-texas-longhorns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/291753\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Softball Tournament: Is Teagan Kavan ready for Texas Longhorns?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After capping an exhilarating \u2014 and exhausting \u2014 SEC Tournamen<\/a>t by throwing 12 strikeouts in a complete,\u00a07-1 victory Saturday<\/a> over Alabama in the title contest, Texas softball<\/a> ace\u00a0Teagan Kavan<\/a> admitted to reporters that she felt exhausted after starting three consecutive games on three straight days last weekend in Lexington, Ky.<\/p>\n

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But a weary Kavan turned in a wonderful performance, considering she had never before worked that many innings in a three-day span.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMaybe she needs to be tired to pitch well, because she had all her pitches working,\u201d Texas coach Mike White<\/a> said earlier this week. \u201cI think the adrenaline must have kicked in, because getting 12 strikeouts against Alabama, she couldn’t have been too tired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Longhorns pitcher Teagan Kavan (17) takes the field during the game against Arkansas at Red & Charline McCombs Field on Thursday, April 30, 2026 in Austin.<\/p>\n

Aaron E. Martinez\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

White delivered those comments with a grin, because he understands the toll that innings can take on an arm as much as any coach in the college game. He\u2019s a former pitcher at the professional and international level in men\u2019s fastpitch softball, and knows the physical and mental grind that can come with serving as a team\u2019s ace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always ask the question, \u2018How you feeling?\u2019 \u201d White said, when considering whether Kavan or any other pitcher needs to take on a bigger burden. \u201cWe want to make sure that she’s in on it and that it’s her idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

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MORE: How ‘Smash Sisters’ Reese Atwood, Katie Stewart super-charge Texas softball<\/a><\/p>\n

Teagan Kavan: Workload increasing late in year<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one reason that White has avoided giving Kavan the heavy workload that other college pitching stars often carry. Kavan\u2019s 18\u2154 innings at the SEC Tournament is the most she\u2019s thrown over a three-day span in her three-year collegiate career. Her 280 pitches in those three days is just five short of the career-high she threw in a three-game, three-day series against Clemson in last season\u2019s Austin Super Regional series<\/a>, which Texas won 2-1 to set up its title run at the Women\u2019s College World Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was just trying to compete and compete for my teammates, no matter what the score was going to be,\u201d Kavan told reporters after the win over Alabama. \u201cI wrote down in my journal win pretty or win ugly, whatever it took to get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n

White doesn\u2019t want to throw Kavan that many innings in that short a span no matter how pretty the results. But her performance at the SEC Tournament helps alleviate any concerns if and when the Longhorns need to turn to Kavan for an extended stretch in the NCAA Tournament<\/a>, which begins this weekend for Texas at the Austin Regional<\/a> at McCombs Field. In those 18\u2154 innings in Lexington, Ky,\u00a0Kavan gave up a total of 11 hits and five runs while striking out 24 batters and issuing just two walks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does give me a lot of confidence that we were able to throw her multiple innings (in three days),\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

MORE: Texas softball slugger Katie Stewart named SEC’s player of the year by league coaches<\/a><\/p>\n

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NCAA softball tournament: How much action will Teagan Kavan see in Austion Regional?<\/p>\n

Kavan seems to be getting stronger as the season wears on. Her second-highest workload of the year came a week before the SEC Tournament, when she threw 265 pitches across three days and 16\u2153 innings in a 2-1 series loss to Arkansas<\/a> and gave up a total of seven hits and three runs while striking out 18 batters and issuing just four walks. Those two busy weekends have helped drop her ERA to 2.65, the lowest since the Longhorns began a grueling stretch of SEC play at the start of April against ranked teams that included Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia and Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Texas probably won\u2019t need Kavan to work extra this weekend, since the top-seeded and sixth-ranked Longhorns<\/a> (42-10) are heavy favorites to advance out of a region that also includes\u00a0Wisconsin,\u00a0Baylor and Wagner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, White and his staff kept Kavan busy during the five days between the SEC championship game and Friday\u2019s NCAA Tournament opener against Wagner.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur first thing is to make sure she’s going to be rested and ready to go,\u201d White said. \u201cBut you also can’t shut her down either, because then that’d be the one of the worst things you got to keep. You keep her active; you just got to kind of count the number of pitches that she’s throwing and how often she’s throwing and just let her soreness be a guide to what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Regional schedule at McCombs Field<\/p>\n

12:30 p.m. \u2013 Game 1: Baylor vs. Wisconsin (ESPN+)<\/p>\n

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3 p.m. \u2013 Game 2: Texas vs. Wagner (ESPN+)<\/p>\n

12 p.m. \u2013 Game 3: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2<\/p>\n

2:30 p.m. \u2013 Game 4: Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2<\/p>\n

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5 p.m. \u2013 Game 5: Winner Game 4 vs. Loser Game 3<\/p>\n

12 p.m. \u2013 Game 6: Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 5<\/p>\n

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Game 7: Winner Game 4 vs. Loser Game 3 (if necessary)<\/p>\n

Note that game times are subject to change due to game length and a mandatory 35-minute break between each game.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After capping an exhilarating \u2014 and exhausting \u2014 SEC Tournament by throwing 12 strikeouts in a complete,\u00a07-1 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[46014,105358,56161,27,29,537,28703,28],"class_list":["post-291753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-softball","tag-ncaa-softball-tournament","tag-teagan-kavan","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-softball","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291753","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=291753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}