Texas utility Katie Stewart (20) runs home after hitting a home run in the sixth inning of a Women’s College World Series softball game between the Texas Longhorns and the Florida Gators at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Thursday, May 29, 2025. OKLAHOMA CITY — Katie Stewart’s fourth-inning home run helped lift Texas to a 2-0 win over Tennessee in the Women’s College World Series semifinals Monday.
The victory sends the sixth-seeded Longhorns (54-11) to the best-of-three WCWS Championship Series for the third time in four seasons.
Texas will face either Oklahoma or Texas Tech in the series, which begins Wednesday. The Longhorns are searching for their first national title.
The seventh-seeded Lady Volunteers’ season ends at 47-17.
Texas’ Mac Morgan (11-4) held Tennessee to just three hits through four innings before giving way to Teagan Kavan, who earned her fourth save.
The Vols had runners on base in each of the first five innings but couldn’t push a run across.
For the first three innings, Tennessee’s Karlyn Pickens (25-11) held the Longhorns in check.
In the third, she worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam with a strikeout and a foul out.
But Stewart broke through with a leadoff home run in the fourth and that was plenty for Kavan, who came in to start the fifth and threw three no-hit innings to clinch the victory.
Tennessee assistant coach Craig Snider was ejected in the top of the fourth for arguing balls and strikes.
The Longhorns added an unearned run in the sixth on a throwing error by third baseman Taylor Pannell.
–Field Level Media
