{"id":311980,"date":"2026-05-28T05:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/311980\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T05:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:49:12","slug":"texas-tech-softballs-gerry-giasco-says-his-team-is-embracing-villain-role-ahead-of-wcws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/311980\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech Softball’s Gerry Giasco Says His Team Is Embracing ‘Villain’ Role Ahead of WCWS"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t always this good for Texas Tech softball.<\/p>\n

Before 2025 and 2026, the Red Raiders had only made back-to-back NCAA tournaments once. But once coach Gerry Glasco arrived and the investment money started flowing, boom: a 54-14 record a year ago and a 57-7 mark this season.<\/p>\n

When the Women\u2019s College World Series begins Thursday, no one will be under a bigger microscope than Texas Tech. Oklahoma, which ruled the early 2020s, is out. The title of college softball\u2019s flagship program is up for grabs, with the Red Raiders, Texas and UCLA among the squads vying for the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing things that maybe never [have] been done before,\u201d Glasco said Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m enjoying every moment, and if softball needs me to be the villain, I\u2019m all about it. Let\u2019s go, it\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

With bold boosters and one sensational pitcher, Texas Tech went where no Red Raiders softball team had gone before\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Tech’s NiJaree Canady reacts to a strikeout against Baylor during a Big 12 Conference softball game. | Nathan Giese\/Avalanche-Journal \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

College football fans are quite familiar with oil-and-gas baron and former Texas Tech offensive lineman Cody Campbell, who put his monies toward (successfully) buying the Red Raiders a winning football team last season.<\/p>\n

However, Campbell has also made quite the mark on Texas Tech\u2019s non-basketball and football sports. He wrote a seven-figure check<\/a> to the Red Raiders\u2019 softball program, and that level of financial commitment from Texas Tech\u2019s broader donor apparatus helped Texas Tech lure pitcher NiJaree Canady away from Stanford in the transfer portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canady was unhittable in `25, going 34-7 with a 1.11 ERA and 319 strikeouts in 240 innings. This year, she\u2019s been similarly spectacular, posting a 25-6 mark with a 1.78 ERA and 226 strikeouts in 161 innings. The Topeka, Kan., native has vacuumed up national pitcher of the year honors for the bulk of her career for a reason.<\/p>\n

This past weekend, Texas Tech burnished its villain credentials against Florida\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Tech second baseman Mia Williams gets Florida infielder Kenleigh Cahalan out at second. | Alan Youngblood\/Gainesville Sun \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Red Raiders\u2019 powerful lineup this season includes infielder Mia Williams, a transfer from Florida (around two-thirds of Texas Tech\u2019s roster are transfers) and the daughter of ex-NBAer Jason Williams.<\/p>\n

This weekend, the Red Raiders and Gators played in a Super Regional, and chaos ensured with Mia at the center of the action<\/a>. Florida hit Mia five times, Mia hit two home runs, and Jason was ejected from Game 1 after an altercation with one of the Gators\u2019 fans. Florida had reached six of the previous 10 Women\u2019s College World Series in yet another sign of college softball\u2019s changing of the guard.<\/p>\n

Texas Tech can finish the job this Women\u2019s College World Series\u2014but it won\u2019t be easy<\/p>\n

The Red Raiders get a relatively favorable opening opponent in Mississippi State, the only unseeded team left in the tournament as well as the only Women\u2019s College World Series team with more than a dozen losses.<\/p>\n

Should Texas Tech win, things could get tricky quickly. The Red Raiders would play the winner of an intra-SEC battle between Tennessee and the Longhorns\u2014the latter of whom beat Texas Tech in last year\u2019s finals. While Texas boasts that psychological advantage, the Volunteers have the lowest team ERA in the country at 1.35. On the other side of the bracket sit four teams seeded higher than Texas Tech: Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas and the Bruins.<\/p>\n

More from Sports Illustrated\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn\u2019t always this good for Texas Tech softball. Before 2025 and 2026, the Red Raiders had only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-311980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311980","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=311980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}