NIL
NiJaree Canady, Texas Tech softball ride ‘selfless’ attitude to WCWS finals
Why Texas Tech, Texas will win 2025 WCWS It’s a Lone Star State Women’s College World Series this year, and reporter Jenni Carlson breaks down one reason Texas Tech will win and one reason Texas will win the WCWS. OKLAHOMA CITY — It took NiJaree Canady until the Women’s College World Series finals to admit […]


Why Texas Tech, Texas will win 2025 WCWS
It’s a Lone Star State Women’s College World Series this year, and reporter Jenni Carlson breaks down one reason Texas Tech will win and one reason Texas will win the WCWS.
OKLAHOMA CITY — It took NiJaree Canady until the Women’s College World Series finals to admit this season has been hard.
Not only has the best pitcher in the country been put under the microscope for her name, image and likeness deal with the Matador Club to join the Texas Tech softball team, Canady also spent the bulk of the 2025 season with an injury everybody knew she had, though the extent of which was hidden until recently.
On Monday, before playing Oklahoma in the semifinals, Gerry Glasco revealed to a radio show that Canady spent much of the year playing with a torn hamstring. The injury occurred in the Feb. 26 game at North Texas, where Canady, playing first base for the first time, stretched out to get the out. She came out of that game in Denton, and Texas Tech wound up losing 6-5 on a walk-off home run.
“I just know it was a really serious injury,” Glasco said Tuesday, “that was going to take eight or nine weeks to get over completely.”
Canady was back in the circle three days later, leading the Red Raiders to a 7-2 win over then-No. 5 Texas A&M. The injury, Glasco said, would have shut Canady down until she recovered had it been in her right leg. Since it was in her left, Canady was able to continue pitching but had to make concessions elsewhere.
Midweek bullpen sessions were eliminated, as was hitting, something that played a major factor in Canady’s decision to transfer from Stanford to Texas Tech. For about a month, Canady pitched in games, and that was about it.
“Honestly,” Canady said, “I think the results said it was worse than it was.”
Canady said the injury is a bit overblown, and she spent the better part of two months pitching through it. The million-dollar arm continued to excel in the circle, battling through obvious pain and discomfort. She never said anything about it.
During the time Canady was pitching on a torn hamstring, she totaled 114⅔ innings with a 0.98 ERA across 19 pitching appearances. That ERA, even with the injury, would rank as the best in the country.
“We didn’t talk a lot about it, but it was a significant setback,” Glasco said, “… and then to still have the results that she did, to show what a tremendous competitor and what a tremendous talent she was.”
After earning the game-winning sacrifice fly against Oklahoma, Lauren Allred said the team chose a word to live by this season. That was was selfless, and it exemplifies Canady pitching through the pain and not telling anybody about it.
“NiJa’s a tough competitor,” Texas Tech pitching coach Tara Archibald said, “a team-focused individual. I’ve never met a player with as much talent as NiJa has, who thinks about the team more than anything in the world, and it just says who she is.
“She didn’t have to battle through that. She didn’t have to play through that. But this was NiJa’s goal. NiJa wanted to win a national championship, and she knew if we lost those games in the middle of the year, we wouldn’t have a chance to do it and she was determined to put is in a spot to be able to do it, but that’s just who she is as a person and says a whole lot about her.”
Getting to the Women’s College World Series finals wasn’t an easy trek. Not only were the Red Raiders figuring themselves out, they were doing it with a hobbled workhorse. The only way it was going to work was with everybody doing their part, something Texas Tech’s roster has done throughout the postseason run.
“I think we’ve been playing selfless and playing for each other,” Allred said, “and that’s helped us get through all the tough games.”
Much has been made about what Canady has brought to Texas Tech, the softball team and the athletic department as a whole. Glasco said when the Red Raiders signed her, he was told nearly 1 million stories were generated around her NIL deal. But her value, the coach said, is incalculable.
“I think,” Glasco said, “when you look at how she endured injury, she endured a young team around her, or a new team around her and with a new coaching staff and went through with a new pitching coach, and then she’s got a new hitting coaching working with her on hitting, just total adjustments, but throughout all that, no matter what, she was just rock solid in the circle for us and provided us with that solid stone cold assassin out there in the circle that allowed us to grow and become a really good softball team at the end of the year.
“I think it even surprised us.”
Glasco likened Canady to Superman for her ability to compartmentalize everything around her and power on. Even Superman has a weakness, and while Canady will never complain about her circumstances — if she’ll tell anybody about them at all — getting to this point has been anything but a breeze.
“Honestly,” Canady said, “this year, it’s been hard, just for me personally. I’ll say this, too, I feel like we had a lot of road bumps, and this was not an easy ride.
“We actually were joking about it on the bus, if you would have asked us earlier in the year, earlier in the preseason if we would be two games away from hoisting a National Championship trophy, we would probably laugh. We took some hard losses early on.
“Honestly, just feel like we’ve just grown as a team. Part of the road getting here is peaking at the right time. I feel like we’re finally just catching our step, and we’re getting to know each other on the field, and I feel like we’re just playing for each other right now.”
2025 Women’s College World Series Championship
Best-of-three series at Devon Park, Oklahoma City
Wednesday, June 4
- WCWS finals Game 1: Texas Tech vs. Texas, 7 p.m., ESPN
Thursday, June 5
- WCWS finals Game 2: Texas Tech vs. Texas, 7 p.m., ESPN
Friday, June 6 (if necessary)
WCWS finals Game 3: Texas Tech vs. Texas, 7 p.m., ESPN