Teagan Kavan’s right arm was dominant Saturday in helping her Texas softball team earn its first-ever win against rival Oklahoma in the Women’s College World Series.
Her excellence inside the pitching circle, however, came with a heavy heart.
Kavan’s complete-game performance in the Longhorns’ 4-2 win against the four-time reigning NCAA champion Sooners came only hours after her grandmother died Saturday morning at 97 years old.
Kavan’s grandmother was an instrumental force not only in her life, but her softball career.
The 6-foot sophomore from West Des Moines, Iowa wears No. 17 in honor of her grandmother, who was born on Nov. 17, 1928. Despite being hundreds of miles away from Texas’ campus, her grandmother watched every Longhorns game. When she’d get too nervous in a given moment to watch it live, she’d watch a replay of it later.
“My grandma, she’s got the best seat in the house,” Kavan said in a postgame interview with ESPN. “This is where she wants me. She’s rooting for us all the way. This is where she wants us.”
In Saturday’s win, Kavan kept one of college softball’s most potent lineups largely in check, giving up two runs, only one of which was earned, and striking out eight in seven innings of work.
In just her second college season, Kavan has been the ace of a Texas team that will be one of just two remaining unbeaten squads left in the WCWS by the end of the day on May 31. The win against the Sooners improved her record to 26-5 this season, and she leads all Longhorns pitchers with a 2.40 ERA and 221 strikeouts. She was named a second-team All-American this season by Softball America, D1Softball and the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
On Saturday, she saved her best, and certainly guttiest, performance of the season for her team’s biggest game.
“Through her, my teammates, they all have my back,” Kavan said to ESPN. “All 21, 22 of us, they all have my back. … It was all for her. It was beyond me, honestly. Just relying on them, looking at them in the eyes and getting confidence from them.”