OKLAHOMA CITY — Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco platooned ace pitchers Kaitlyn Terry and NiJaree Canady all the way to the Women’s College World Series championship finals.
But in Game 1 against Texas on Wednesday night, Glasco opted to pull Canady from the game after the second inning of a 7-3 loss to save her for Game 2.
Canady entered the game in the first inning in relief of Terry. But after Texas built a 5-1 lead and Texas Tech did not respond offensively, Glasco decided it would be best to take Canady out and put in Samantha Lincoln, who had made only three appearances in the NCAA tournament before Wednesday.
“We’ve got two games, and I felt like I was going to give our offense the second and third inning to respond, and if we didn’t get anything, I didn’t feel like I could leave NiJa out there and let them look at her,” Glasco said. “I want the matchup tomorrow, and I just felt like it wasn’t a smart move for me to leave her out there in that moment.”
Texas Tech opted to start Terry over ace Canady, a move that Glasco said the coaching staff went “back and forth” on over the course of the day. Ultimately, Glasco said the Red Raiders started Terry because “I’m comfortable putting Nija in a game. I’m not comfortable taking her out of the game. KT has been so good for us. I wanted to see how she competed in this series. I think I needed to know that in order to go into [Games] 2 and 3.”
The game started well for Texas Tech, which took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on a home run from Mihyia Davis. Then came the bottom of the first. Katie Stewart hit a two-run homer off Terry to put Texas up 2-1. Texas then put runners on the corners with two outs, forcing Glasco to take Terry out and put Canady in. It was the first time in her career Terry failed to make it out of the first inning as a starting pitcher.
Texas ultimately scored three more runs on questionable fielding choices — the first when a ball went off first baseman Jackie Lis’ glove and then two more when Ashton Maloney hit a triple to left field that was misplayed by Desirae Spearman to increase the lead to 5-1.
“We just couldn’t get out of the inning,” Glasco said. “It felt like we were out of position over and over on defense. We had plays we could have made. You look at the scoreboard, and it said no errors, but I thought we misplayed several balls that we should have had outs on, or we weren’t in the right position, and that inning got away from us. We just couldn’t get momentum back.”
Canady got a 1-2-3 inning in the second, but because Texas Tech did not score in the second or third, Glasco made the decision to save Canady for Thursday and bring on Lincoln in the bottom of the third. Canady faced only six batters in relief, her second fewest across her 20 career pitching appearances in her Women’s College World Series career.
“We were able to attack early and so we were able to chase Terry out of the game quickly, and NiJa had her stuff, and so I was a little surprised she came out early, but she’s going to be fresh for tomorrow, so just make sure we stay on the attack,” Stewart said.
Glasco repeatedly lamented the defensive lapses, saying the only hard-hit ball was Stewart’s home run. Now, he has to hope his decision to keep Canady fresh for a must-win Game 2 pays off.
“We’ve not lost two games in a row the whole year, so we’ve got to hang our hat on that,” Glasco said. “We’ve got to come back out tomorrow and fight. If we can survive tomorrow night’s game, you’ve got momentum going into Game 3 and our kids will feel a lot different after they win a game than they do right now.
“We’ve got a really talented team. We can play as well or better than any team in the country when we play well. We’ve got to refocus, readjust and get momentum in our dugout and get tomorrow’s game. That’s all that matters.”
