Texas Tech survived another must-win game Sunday night, outlasting UCLA 8-7 in nine innings at Devon Park to reach the Women’s College World Series semifinals. The Red Raiders now get No. 1 Alabama at 6 p.m., and they need two wins to keep playing for a spot in the WCWS Finals.
The timing matters because Texas Tech is trying to turn a season that has already delivered a national title chase into one more step. The Red Raiders opened the WCWS with an 8-0 run-rule win over Mississippi State on Thursday, then lost 2-1 in nine innings to Tennessee on Saturday and were one loss from elimination before they found a way past UCLA.
Mihyia Davis was at the center of that escape. She went 3-for-6 against UCLA and reached 98 hits for the season, while Kaitlyn Terry delivered an RBI double in the top of the ninth to score Taylor Pannell for a 7-6 lead that Texas Tech needed to survive. A fielding error off Davis’ bat widened the margin and produced the winning run, a break the Red Raiders needed after UCLA had knocked off their previous opponent and pushed the game deep into the night.
Texas Tech did not win this game with one arm. NiJaree Canady threw four innings and Terry worked five, and each struck out seven as the Red Raiders used six pitching changes to keep UCLA from pulling away. Mia Williams added three hits, including her team-leading 25th home run of the season, and through three games in Oklahoma City, Texas Tech has been getting the kind of production that made it one of the nation’s most dangerous lineups.
That lineup has carried a season built on numbers that travel well: 654 total hits, a.380 batting average, 139 home runs and 37 run-rule victories. Williams, Davis, Canady, Terry and Jackie Lis were all NFCA All-Americans, and Davis also earned all-America honors from D1Softball and Softball America, a reminder that this is not a one-player team even when one player has to make the decisive play.
Alabama brings the harder assignment. The Crimson Tide are unbeaten in the WCWS after a 6-3 win over UCLA on Thursday and a 5-1 victory over Nebraska on Saturday, and they arrive on a seven-game winning streak. Texas Tech is 1-3 all-time against Alabama, and the teams have not met since 2017, which only adds to the urgency now that the Red Raiders must beat the Crimson Tide twice to reach the finals for the second straight year.
On the other side of the bracket, Texas and Tennessee were also chasing the last steps to the championship series, with Tennessee needing one win and Texas needing two. For Texas Tech, the path is simpler and harder at the same time: beat Alabama at 6 p.m. and force a winner-take-all game 30 minutes later, or leave Oklahoma City one round short of the finish line it has spent all week trying to reach.
