I’m still grounded enough to know that the world–not even the sports world–revolves around women’s college softball. Not even close, as ratings consistently attest. But a few more days like yesterday might close their gap even more significantly than what I suspect the events of yesterday may have manifested.
The unique nature of softball being a seven-inning game, the tournament structure that requires two losses for elimination and the central location of Oklahoma City allowed for the potential of a quadrupleheader, with both morning and afternoon sessions allowing for the opportunity for teams to extend their season by minutes for an immediate nightcap and then potentially beyond that with a spot in the best-of-three finals. And if you’re a resident or a fan from the great state of Texas, if you didn’t know all of that before yesterday you sure do now.
In the afternoon, the higher-seeded University of Texas Longhorns got their hometown AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN’s anonymous “sports desk” gushing with praise:
For the third straight year, the Longhorns have made the Women’s College World Series finals. Texas downed Tennessee 4-0 Monday afternoon to sweep their semifinal doubleheader.
But UT didn’t get here the easy way. Texas, the defending national champion, lost its first game of World Series run, but came back to win the next three while on the brink of elimination. And whether it’s Katie Stewart’s power or Teagan Kavan’s pitching Texas followers appreciate the effort.
The AAS-hats may have taken the lazy way out by allowing the voices of X to do the lion’s share of their storytelling, but you no doubt catch their drift.
Were that not enough, their fellow Lone Star State residents did their part to not only duplicate that effort but take out the current top team in the country as nightfall unfolded. THE LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL’s Nathan Giese actually showed his face and authored a few words of his own to crow about his hometown school’s efforts:
The Texas Tech softball team is back in the national championship series of the Women’s College World Series. The Red Raiders needed two victories to keep their season alive and are now in the midst of a win-or-go-home game with the Crimson Tide with the winner heading to the WCWS championship series. Mia Williams delivered the walk-off home run in the first game for a 5-4 win and NiJaree Canady showed her dominance in a 2-0 win in the second game to put Texas Tech back in the title series. Texas Tech will now play Texas in the championship.
Giese took the liberty of live-blogging the day’s events in a manner that has become all too typical for the way digital stories are composed these days. But since it’s been pointed out to me that his target audience lives by the mantra TL; DR I’ll cut him some slack. Besides, it was a lot more exciting to watch than it is to read about.
That said, they will be going head-to-head with the San Antonio Spurs’ NBA finals opener on Wednesday and potentially their Game 2 on Friday night if that series goes the limit. A night meant for multiview, or at bare minimum bookmarking someone like Giese. Or your X feed, if that floats your boat. I’m told Texans are more likely to be open to that anyhow.
Courage…