{"id":313691,"date":"2026-05-29T08:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/313691\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:50:17","slug":"texas-softball-facing-elimination-after-losing-to-tennessee-in-wcws-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/313691\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas softball facing elimination after losing to Tennessee in WCWS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/sports\/college\/longhorns\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Texas<\/a> softball, the defending national champion, faces a tall task if it hopes to repeat after dropping its first game at the Women&#8217;s College World Series 6-3 to SEC foe Tennessee on Thursday at Devon Park.<\/p>\n<p>Texas ace Teagan Kavan gave up three runs on three hits in three innings, including a three-run homer by Tennessee freshman catcher Elsa Morrison in the second inning.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps with an eye on Friday&#8217;s elimination game against Mississippi State, Texas coach Mike White pulled\u00a0Kavan to start the fourth inning for reliever Citlaly Gutierrez. Tennessee (48-10) touched Gutierrez for four hits and three runs, doing just enough to keep brief Texas rallies at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Texas (47-12) only managed one hit in four innings off Tennessee starter Sage Mardjetko, but the Longhorns did find success against fellow All-American Karlyn Pickens after the 6-foot-1 flamethrower \u2014 her fastball reaches 79.4 mph, the fastest recorded pitch in NCAA history \u2014 entered the game to start the fifth. The Longhorns tagged Pickins for three runs on four hits, and Leighann Goode&#8217;s two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning pulled Texas within 5-3.<\/p>\n<p>But Tennessee added a little insurance in the top of the seventh, and Pickens sent Texas down in order in the bottom of the frame to end the game.<\/p>\n<p>Texas and Mississippi State, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/sports\/article\/lis-homers-canady-throws-4-scoreless-and-texas-22280934.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">which lost to Texas Tech on Thursday<\/a>, will play at 6\u00a0p.m. Friday in an elimination game. The two SEC rivals did not play each other in the regular season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 Texas softball, the defending national champion, faces a tall task if it hopes to repeat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-313691","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\/313691","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=313691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}