Texas softball will open the Women’s College World Series on Thursday against a familiar foe.

Behind a 3-hit, complete-game effort from All-American pitcher NiJaree Canady, Stanford walloped LSU 8-0 in the third game of a best-of-three super regional series Sunday night to advance to the WCWS in Oklahoma City. The No. 8 Cardinal (48-15) will face top-seeded Texas (51-7) 6 p.m. Thursday at Devon Park. Since the WCWS follows a double-elimination format, the loser of the game won’t be eliminated from the tournament but will have to battle back into contention from the losers’ bracket.

More: Texas softball outlasts the Aggies, sighs relief | Bohls

Canady, who joins Texas catcher Reese Atwood as one of the three finalists for USA Softball’s player of the year award, isn’t a stranger to the Longhorn lineup. She threw all eight innings in a 4-3 win by the Cardinal over Texas early in the season, allowing six hits, two walks and two earned runs while striking out 11.

Canady, a sophomore, brings pure heat to the circle. She leads the nation in strikeouts with 310 as well as ERA with a miniscule 0.67 entering Sunday’s game with LSU.

Immediately after his team’s win over Texas A&M in the third game of their super regional series, Texas coach Mike White didn’t know whether Texas would face Canady and the Cardinal or a slugging LSU squad. He did know that his team would return for the second time in three seasons for the WCWS to Devon Park, which serves as the host of the Big 12 Tournament as well as the U.S. national team.

More: WATCH: Texas softball coach Mike White on No. 1 NCAA overall seed, expectations, Oklahoma

“There’s going to be a ‘wow’ factor, don’t get me wrong,” White said. “Maybe half the team has been to the College World Series before, so there’s going to be a ‘Hoosiers’ moment where we’re going to have to probably measure the mound, and base paths — 60-feet-and-turn-left stuff — because they’re going to be in awe about it.

“There’s going to be a lot of stuff happening. But they need to understand that the game’s not going to know all that. You’re going to have to come out and play the game and be ready to go. But I have full confidence that we’ll be able to come out there and give it an ‘A’ game.”

Atwood, a sophomore who set single-season Texas records for home runs (23), RBIs (90) and total bases (160), has had her ‘A’ game all season. She’s looking forward to her trip to the WCWS and says she’s “grateful that we have the opportunity to go play on the biggest stage.”

“We’re just getting ready now,” she said. “We got past this really tough series, and now we’ve got to prepare for what we have coming in. It’s definitely not going to be easy, but I have all faith in this team that we’re going to bring everything we have and make our best go at it.

“This has been a dream of mine since I was 10 years old. I can’t believe it, and I’m just so proud of us and proud of our fight. And we’re not done yet; we have business to take care of coming up.”

Abbott denies a special session to address Texas’ school district funding crisis and ties relief to passing school vouchers. That’s not how government for the people should work.

After four special legislative sessions pushing a failed school voucher plan, Gov. Greg Abbott is ignoring Texas students. Across the state, school districts, including Austin ISD, are in financial distress. But this month, when 39 House Democrats requested a special session to help, Abbott refused. In doing so, the governor denies Texas students their constitutional right to quality public education.

The Democrats’ ask was reasonable: 30 days to hash out more state funding per student and for school safety needs. Numerous districts are reeling from inflation, campus safety costs, and a basic per-student funding level that’s been stagnant since 2019. Austin ISD, struggling with an $89 million deficit, announced plans to shrink it to $59 million with cutbacks such as 42 layoffs in the central office, and trimming overtime, contracts and other costs.

The school board also is mulling a request for a tax hike that could bring $44 million into the district’s budget of $956 million, enabling a three percent pay raise for teachers along with other needs. The tax hike would need voter approval.

The focus in this crisis should be Texas kids. Instead, Abbott lambasts schools for the deficits, citing overdependence on temporary federal COVID funds and lower enrollment. He blames the funding freeze on lawmakers who rightly balked at sharing their voters’ public education funds with private schools. In truth, under Abbott’s influence, legislation for public school funding was pulled from a vote after House members voted to strip out an attached voucher plan.

The school budget crisis has been a long time coming.

“The biggest reason that schools are in financial trouble now is because the state legislature was unable to pass a bill for public school funding,” said David DeMatthews, a University of Texas associate professor specializing in education policy. Like districts in other states, Texas school districts are grappling with inflation in goods, utilities, and technology, wage competition and the academic and mental health fallout of COVID. AISD additionally has been slammed by lower-than-expected property tax growth, and cost of state and federal special education requirements.

Districts overall are shouldering unique new expenses. After the mass shooting of Uvalde elementary school students, House Bill 3 required each school to hire an armed guard, allotting $15,000 per campus plus $10 per student, or about $2.5 million for AISD. But AISD estimates that the new hires will cost $8 million plus related costs, leaving an unfunded state mandate of about $5.5 million a year.

Underlying the school emergency is years of underinvestment. An American-Statesman analysis found that once adjusted for inflation, Texas’ per-student funding from state and local sources has dropped by 12.9% since 2020. Texas ranks 42nd in the country for per-student public education funding. The state’s share of ISD funding dropped from 44 percent in 2011 to 31 percent in 2022, education consultant Paul Colbert said.

“Other states are dealing with the same problems and taking steps to remedy them,” DeMatthews told the Editorial Board. “But they don’t have the history that Texas does.”

Also distinctive to Texas: the backdrop of a history-making budget surplus of $32.7 billion last year. The Legislature tapped existing revenue for $4 billion in school funding. But under Abbott’s sway, these funds were tied to voucher approval, a package repeatedly rejected by House members. Among them were 21 Republicans, many from rural districts where public schools are cherished community centers.

Texas has $5 billion in unspent school funds, Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, wrote Abbott, who is still stinging over the defeat of vouchers at the legislature. To access that money, Abbott wrote back, lawmakers need to “muster the votes to get it passed.” In short, they must vote for a program their voters don’t want, or Abbott holds billions of school dollars hostage.

Texas has a constitutional obligation to provide free public schools

This isn’t how government should work. As the Texas Constitution states, “It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State, to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”  

If Abbott valued Texas students as much as he does vouchers, he would call a special session so lawmakers can help Texas students. The need is urgent. The money is there. And Texans have a right to adequately funded public schools.

AUSTIN, Texas (KBTX) – Julia Cottill’s 3-run bomb in the seventh inning wasn’t enough as Texas beat Texas A&M 6-5 in game three of the Austin Super Regional Sunday night.

All three games in this super regional were decided by one run (a 6-5 A&M win, a 9-8 Texas win in 9 innings, and a 6-5 Texas win).

Cottrill’s home run pulled the Aggies within a run in the seventh inning 6-5. But Amari Harper struck out looking by Teagan Kavan to end the game.

Trinity Cannon started the scoring with an RBI double in the first inning. Cannon finished the weekend with 8 RBI.

Texas scored three straight runs capped off by a Mia Scott home run in the fifth inning to take a 3-1 lead.

The wheels seemed to fall off a bit for the Aggies in the sixth inning. The Longhorns scored three more runs on a throwing error, a Scott RBI single and a Viviana Martinez RBI triple to take a 6-2 lead.

Texas advances to its seventh Women’s College World Series.

The Aggies finish year two under Trisha Ford with 44-15 record.

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