Which awards has Texas Tech softball’s NiJaree Canady won this year?

OKLAHOMA CITY — NiJaree Canady continued to collect more individual accolades Wednesday ahead of the Texas Tech softball team’s debut in the Women’s College World Series.

Canady was named the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s pitcher of the year and was a unanimous first-team All-American selection, the organization announced in a press conference at Devon Park. Canady has now won back-to-back NFCA pitcher of the year awards — the only player in history to do so — after earning the accolade in 2024 while at Stanford.

This marks another first for the Texas Tech softball program as Canady is the first player to earn first-team All-American honors from the NFCA. Tech previously had four honorees: Sandy Butler (1998) and Amanda Renfro (2001) were second-team selections while Jessica Harwell (2018) and Karli Hamilton (2019) were third-team honorees.

Canady joined Texas Tech last summer out of the transfer portal and has spearheaded the Red Raiders to a record-breaking year, featuring the team’s first regular-season and tournament Big 12 titles, the first home regional, regional title, Super Regional title, and WCWS appearance in program history.

“Just getting to the World Series by itself is hard,” Canady said during the NFCA press conference, “but definitely kind of with the new team environment. I’m so grateful to be back.”

More awards for Texas Tech softball’s NiJaree Canady

Earlier Wednesday, Canady was named the unanimous choice for pitcher of the year by the USA TODAY Sports Network. Awards were voted on by college softball beat writers throughout the network.

The list of awards for Canady continues to grow. She was previously named the pitcher of the year by the Big 12 Conference at D1Softball, earning first-team All-American status from both entities.