2026 WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 3, 2026

Gerry Glasco

Mia Williams

Mihyia Davis

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Postgame Press Conference

Texas 7, Texas Tech 3

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Texas Tech head coach Gerry Glasco and players Mia Williams and Mihyia Davis. Coach, if you have an opening statement, feel free.

GERRY GLASCO: Tremendous crowd, tremendous environment, very exciting to take the field tonight. I was really hyped about the game.

I thought we got off to a good start. Mihyia hit the home run and had us 1-0. I was excited. Then we just lost momentum completely. I felt like we weren't ready for the bunt. We didn't anticipate it.

Then you get Stewart up, and she had an unbelievable year. She did what she's been doing all year. She's so clutch. She's a great hitter having a great season.

And then we just couldn't get out of the inning. It felt like we were out of position over and over on defense. We had plays we could have made. I don't know exactly. I've got to watch it. 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. That inning got away from us, and we're quickly -- all of a sudden we go from 1-0 to down 5-1. We just couldn't get our momentum back.

Kavan was on and really good. I thought Mia gave us a lift. Jazzy got a walk, and then Mia give us a home run and give us a chance there, but we'd already lost one -- we let them have one more run. Bottom line, they just beat us tonight, and it was their night.

Q. Mihyia, since you were in this spot last year, you guys lost Game 1, came back to win Game 2, what did you learn from that experience last year that you can kind of take into this one knowing that you have to win tomorrow?

MIHYIA DAVIS: We just have to play better tomorrow and be more focused and have a better plan. You know that's why it's the best 2 out of 3, you have more games. So we're just going to have to pick it up tomorrow.

Q. For either Mihyia or Mia, was there any kind of nerves? Like Coach mentioned the defensive lapses, there weren't any errors, but any kind of nerves with the setting and all the hype around this matchup?

MIA WILLIAMS: I don't think so, no nerves.

MIHYIA DAVIS: Me personally, I wasn't nervous, but I'm sure there were some girls who were nervous just because it's a big stage.

Q. For both of the players, what do you all think you all were seeing in Teagan Kavan's pitching that maybe your other teammates didn't see?

MIA WILLIAMS: I didn't see it very good my first two at-bats, but the third one I did. She just -- she's a really good pitcher. I think she has good command with her balls, and she's elite. It's hard. She's a good pitcher.

MIHYIA DAVIS: Yeah, she's a great pitcher. So she has good movement. I think we just need to be more -- we don't need to swing at a whole bunch of balls next time.

Q. Mia, what did Gerry tell you right before you hit that home run? Was it just kind of look for something more in the zone?

MIA WILLIAMS: I think the balls I was swinging at were in the zone. I just didn't have the right swings. Yeah, just keep battling.

Q. Gerry, you brought Samantha Lincoln in pretty early. Were you looking ahead at all? Were you just trying to change the momentum of this game? Were you thinking of tomorrow at all? What was the thought process of that?

GERRY GLASCO: Thinking about tomorrow and the next day. We've got two games. 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. I want the matchup tomorrow.

I just thought it wasn't -- I just felt like it wasn't a smart move for me to leave her out there in that moment, and it was a good opportunity to get Sam out there. She had good success against Texas last year in the final. She's worked really hard, and I've been wanting to get her some World Series experience all along and see what she would do.

I thought she was outstanding tonight. There was one run there where I felt like we should have went from 6-4 and we went 6-3. She'd have been out of that inning. I thought she was outstanding.

Q. There was a couple of really long at-bats from the girls. Do you think they're getting close to cracking this code of Kavan? And obviously going back to last year and just kind of struggles with her too.

GERRY GLASCO: I thought we had some good at-bats. As the game went on, I thought we saw her better. The one thing is we kept her out there longer. When Mia hit the home run, that kept it close enough that they couldn't let her rest.

I thought it was really important we kept the game close. That was my hesitation going to Sam was that, if we did let the game get away, they could rest her.

I thought we saw the ball better and better as the game went on. I thought there was two 2-3 counts where we swung at ball 4. If we could have took those pitches -- that's what a good pitcher does, she makes you swing at those pitches. Tip my hat to Teagan on her effort tonight. She was outstanding.

Q. Coach, you mentioned it in your opening statement, but when you started to see those miscues, misplays by your players, what was going through your head? You mentioned it, they seemed like errors, if anything, mental errors.

GERRY GLASCO: We've had games like that through the year. If you go back to the Arizona game, there's several games like that throughout the year where it seemed like we just aren't -- we aren't focused on defense and our positioning's out.

It's not necessarily the errors as much as not being in the right place at the right time and getting caught off. We were shallow in left field, and that was a three hole. She was a three hole. Altmeyer was a three hole for Arizona last year, and we were playing her like she was a weak slapper. I don't know exactly what happened. I've got to look at the film there.

It might have even been last night we went 6-3 when we should have went 6-4. Then we did it again tonight. There's things like that we have to clean up this level because, when you play a team like Texas with the talent they've got, you don't have room to make misplays or to have lapses on defense.

Q. You mentioned the momentum just kind of got away from you there early on. How important was it, one, for Sam to kind of stem the tide a little bit and keep you in it, but just to not let the game get out of hand, to get a little bit of something going into the next one?

GERRY GLASCO: It was critical. At that point, once it was 5-1 and we went three innings 5-1, I think I put her in the bottom of the third if I'm not mistaken, might have been the fourth.

Anyway, she did what she was put in there to do. She held the game, kept it close, kept it tight, gave us a chance to get back in the game. We just didn't do it. Tip your hat to Teagan.

I thought they made some good plays. Mihyia hit a ball hard to left field. There was a couple other balls we hit. They held Jackie to first on that ball off the wall. Someone told me she fell down. I didn't see that. I couldn't figure out why she didn't get second. Maybe she fell down on that. Anyway, they made some good defensive efforts, and they're a really good team.

Q. Coach, you got your backs against the wall so far here in Oklahoma City, but in recent Women's College World Series history, the team that's won Game 1 has statistically gone on to win 80 percent of the time. How do you think you guys can buck that trend?

GERRY GLASCO: What's the percent?

Q. 80.

GERRY GLASCO: I think that's good. We have no choice. We've not lost two games in a row the whole year, so we've got to hang our hat on that. We've got to come back out tomorrow to fight. Then if we get momentum -- 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 just got to get up off the floor, that's the hardest part. I think we've got a really talented team. I think 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 is tomorrow's game.

If we do get that and live to see another day, it will be a fun Game 3.

Q. Gerry, do you feel like NiJa and Kaitlyn had their best stuff tonight, or do you chalk up what happened in the first couple of innings to some of those defensive lapses that we've talked about?

GERRY GLASCO: The only ball that I think was hit really hard was the home run by Katie, I think it was hit really hard. That was supposed to be outside chalk or river, it wasn't supposed to be over the plate, and I think it just got away. It's hard to throw a backdoor curve and keep it off the plate. I think it was a backdoor curve out. When your ball's moving and you've got adrenaline going, that happens. It will get over the plate. Then a great hitter can take advantage of that.

That's part of the game. When you play Texas, you know Katie Stewart's going to get her licks in, to be expected. Other than that, I don't really remember a hard-hit ball. I thought we were just in the wrong place, wrong time.

Q. Coach, when the entire Texas order is getting hits, what are you telling your pitching to keep them in the game physically but also mentally?

GERRY GLASCO: Yeah, Tara handles the pitchers more than I do. You hope they're resilient this time of year. You know when you're facing an offense like Texas, it's going to be tough. You've just got to fight, just keep fighting, don't give up.

Q. One thing that's interesting about Teagan, and Mike White mentioned this, her stats during the regular season aren't necessarily NiJa or Karlyn Pickens dominant, but then she gets in the postseason, and she's got like a zero-point-whatever E.R.A. In your scouting, what is she doing differently when she gets to Oklahoma City?

GERRY GLASCO: I think she's one of those great athletes that's able to have great focus in the big moment and loves to compete and thrives under competition. You tip your hat to her. The same way NiJa rose up last night, she rose up tonight. You've got to tip your hat to her. Like, this is a great pitcher. She's proven what she is over and over and over. She was good tonight.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about your lineup changes, and when you took a look at the lineup, we thought NiJa could potentially get the start. Was there any discussion about NiJa getting the start today and then burning both Vic and NiJa very early in the game? Was that part of the plan?

GERRY GLASCO: Yeah, there was a lot of talk, like we were back and forth with it all the way up, all day, because there's two ways to approach the series. At the end of the day, I kept thinking what we did at Florida and then what we did in Alabama last night where we started KT.

It seemed like for me I'm really comfortable going -- I'm really comfortable putting NiJa in a game; I'm not comfortable taking her out of a game. So I tend to wait -- I usually wait too long with NiJa, and I feel like it's an easier choice for me to go.

Then I wanted to see. KT's been so good for us. I wanted to see how she competed in this series. I think I need to know that in order to go into 2 and 3. I felt like she competed well. I feel like we let her down behind her. We didn't play well behind her. The one ball to Katie Stewart, that's going to happen. It doesn't matter who you're pitching this year, she's good.

But the rest, I thought KT was plenty good enough. We just didn't back her well.