Texas Longhorns Star Wanted to Face Oklahoma, Not Texas Tech, for National Title

For the third time in four years, the Texas Longhorns will play for a national championship at the Women’s College World Series, finally taking on a new opponent, the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
The last two times the Longhorns were in the championship series, they’ve run into the Oklahoma Sooners dynasty that has won four straight national championships, with the Longhorns being defeated twice in that stretch, with series sweeps in both 2022 and 2024.

This time, the Longhorns will avoid the dynasty in the championship series, but for graduate Joley Mitchell, getting the chance to beat OU for their first national championship would have made the win a whole lot better.

“Personally, I wanted it to be OU,” said Mitchell in a media availability. “If you want to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man, so I’m happy regardless and I want to win this thing and I’m ready to go…wish it would’ve been OU but it’s not, so we just have to focus on what’s in front of us.”

Oklahoma Sooners head coach Patty Gasso has had a dominant hold on the softball world; her accolades read like a laundry list, with eight national championships, 16 conference Coach of the Year awards, appearing in every championship series since 2019, and since 2016, winning six out of their seven national championship appearances.

Putting an end to Oklahoma’s streak was first a loss to Texas in the second game of the WCWS, where Mitchell hit a dagger solo home run in the sixth inning, which moved the Sooners to the other side of the bracket, forcing them to come out of the losers’ bracket.

And after defeating the Oregon Ducks, the Sooners needed to win twice against the Texas Tech Red Raiders to reach the championship series. The Red Raiders delivered the final blow to Oklahoma, defeating them in the first game in walk-off fashion, 3-2.

Finally, the Texas Longhorns will avoid Oklahoma in the championship series, but are still facing a challenge with old Big 12 foe Texas Tech. Led by superstar ace junior Nijaree Canady, who on the season is 33-5 with a .90 ERA and 304 strikeouts, and has pitched the entirety of the WCWS for Tech.

Game one of the championship series begins on Wednesday, June 4, at 7 p.m. C.T. on ESPN