Teagan Kavan walks into the conference room after leading Texas softball to its first Women’s College World Series win. She stands out amongst her teammates, standing at six feet, she pushes her shoulders back, and her face is unbelievably composed for someone who had just dominated Texas Tech in a full game, which ended with a Texas-topped box score of 10-4.

The sophomore ace’s performance that night made history in a multitude of ways. As well as propelling the Texas team toward its first national championship in program history, she allowed zero earned runs throughout the seven inning game and left the field as the Most Outstanding Player of the Women’s College World Series.

Even so, she keeps her head down.

“I think there’s plenty before me, plenty right now,” she said in response to the Houston Chronicle’s Kirk Bohls’s question of whether she believed she was the best pitcher in college softball. “I think it’s my team. That’s who gets the win — it’s not just me.”

But her teammates had other things to say about her.

“She’s a sophomore and she plays like she’s a fifth year,” senior infielder Katie Cimusz said. “Not many people can go out there and play like they’re a super senior, and she does that every single game.”

Then, head coach Mike White reflected on her growth.

“Watching her mature — she’s never really been rattled, per se,” White said. “Even when she’s given up some runs, you don’t see the emotion on her face… she doesn’t get down, she doesn’t dwell on things, she’s able to bounce back with resiliency.”

Kavan has been something special since her arrival on the 40 Acres. Even before her collegiate career began, her upbringing as a pitcher was strikingly different from other athletes in her class.

Born and raised in West Des Moines, Iowa, Kavan isn’t the first in her family to play the game. Her mother, Teresa Kavan, pitched collegiately for a year at Drake University and was coached by Kavan’s grandmother, Miney. Although Miney didn’t coach Kavan on the field, her support was plentiful off of it.

“Every day of her life, (Miney) would watch ball games,” Theresa said in an article from The Athletic just before the Longhorns and Raiders faced off. “The last year of her life, year and a half of her life, it was watching Texas.”

Kavan didn’t play on a softball team at Dowling Catholic, her high school which has produced other star athletes like WNBA player Caitlin Clark. Instead, she traveled playing exclusively for Iowa Premier Fastpitch, posting 1,444 strikeouts over 772.2 innings, along with 45 shutouts and six no-hitters. She was also the youngest of 32 athletes invited to try out for the 2021 USA Softball U19 Women’s National Team.

As a freshman at Texas, she quickly rose to stardom. An All-American, Big 12 Freshman of the Year, and a WCWS All-Tournament Team member, Kavan became the Longhorns’ top pitcher by leading the team to 20 wins and 135 strikeouts in 130.2 innings in her first year of college. She also made program history as the first Texas player to pitch a complete shutout at the WCWS by allowing Stanford just one hit in 124 pitches, pushing Texas to that year’s championship finals.

“I just wanted to keep (Stanford) off the board (and) let my offense work,” Kavan said after the win. “I just told myself to compete in every single pitch.”

A year later, during the 2025 WCWS, Kavan was on fire. Few pitchers can be as consistent as she proved to be over such a long period of time, but Kavan only served as a relief pitcher in two games out of the six-game run that the Longhorns went on. In all other games, she pitched for all seven innings.

One of those games included the May 31 game against rival Oklahoma, just after Miney had passed that morning at 97 years old. After Kavan learned of her grandmother’s death, she told her teammates that she was ready to go in the circle.

“She told us and the first thing she said was that she’s good and ready to go today,” graduate infielder Joley Mitchell said postgame, a tear escaping from her left eye. “Teagan Kavan’s my hero today.”

That Saturday afternoon against the Sooners, Kavan threw eight strikeouts in seven innings, shutting down an Oklahoma comeback and pushing the Longhorns to the next round.

“This is where (Miney) wants me to be,” Kavan told The Athletic afterward. “She always told me that she’ll always have my back, and so I know she’s out there and I know she has my back. I say everything happens for a reason, and so I think she just wanted to watch.”

As a true sophomore at Texas, Kavan still has up to three years of eligibility left in her collegiate career. If she’s accomplished this much so far, it’s not unreasonable to say that the sky is the limit for what she can do in the years to come.