Mere hours after reportedly agreeing to a new, historic seven-figure contract to stay at Texas Tech next season, the Red Raiders’ iron arm wore out.
“Everybody has a limit,” Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco told the ESPN broadcast shortly after pulling her during Friday’s Women’s College World Series championship series Game 3.
Up until allowing five Texas runs on five hits in the first inning of the Longhorns’ 10-4 trampling of the Red Raiders to claim their first national championship, NiJaree Canady didn’t know limits.
This is the same player who dominated with her riseball at Stanford, leading the Cardinal to two straight World Series appearances and winning the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Award, who revolutionized the sport with her $1 million transfer to West Texas. Canady then used a 0.89 earned run average to lead Texas Tech to Oklahoma City for the first time in the program’s history.
If there was ever a player you’d want to pitch every inning of a three-game series it was Canady. And Red Raiders coach Gerry Glasco would pick Canady again every single time.
“On my left, NiJa Canady,” Glasco said motioning toward Canady postgame. “I’ve been around a lot of softball players, I’ve never been around a better teammate and a better person. Straight-A student all year. Goes to every practice. First one to work, last one to leave. Has played through injury. … Gives us everything she’s got.
“I can’t imagine anybody that I’d — if I had a game in two days, that’s who I want beside me to go to war with. She’s an unbelievable talent. I believe she’s the top player in college softball. She’s provided a great role model for any youth softball player in the country. When you know how good she is on the field and how good she is in the classroom and how good of a teammate she is, and her standards of everything is of excellence.”
After tossing 520 pitches in nine days during this WCWS, Canady ran out of steam against a talented Texas lineup that saw her three days in a row. As improbable as it has seemed at times throughout her collegiate career, the face of the sport finally hit a breaking point.
Canady uncharacteristically allowed four singles and a home run after throwing just 25 pitches in the first inning, giving the Longhorns a 5-0 lead, which they never squandered.
Canady isn’t one to make excuses, however. And there was no way she was going to go down without a fight.
“Every college softball player right now is tired,” Canady said. “There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing right now, playing softball and fighting for the three people to my right. We wanted a different result, but I wanted to leave it all out for my teammates and most importantly my seniors.”
Canady added after being asked if she was exhausted in the first inning: “No, I feel fine. Like I said before, I have all summer to rest.”
Watching the disastrous first inning, Glasco, however, knew then Canady had given all she had to offer.
“We pushed it to the very limit,” Glasco said. “The kid gave us everything that she had and the first inning was a result of a great hitting team, a well-coached team, a well-prepared team coming up against somebody they faced three days in a row. All you had to do was look at the velocity the first night compared to the second night and tonight and it was slowly edging away.
“At the same time, you’re dealing with a great competitor, and you can’t let her pitch all year and take the ball away from her. The game got us. The game teaches the game. The game got us right there. What an incredible performance when you look at what she did the whole season carrying our team, especially when you know the extent of the injuries that she fought through.”
Canady’s performance in Game 3 isn’t how she and the Red Raiders wanted this historic season to end. But Canady’s return to Lubbock next season could be even more exhilarating than Year 1.
Canady’s fame and softball’s rise to the national stage leaves unlimited potential for 2026. Games 1 and 2 of the WCWS final set viewership records. Three-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes flocked to OKC to watch Canady.
While Canady is one of the most dominant forces the sport has ever seen, Glasco knows he needs to acquire and develop more pitching depth behind her next season. He believes if Texas Tech does that, with Canady’s leadership and workhorse mentality, they’ll be back in OKC this time next season.
In fact, minutes after falling short, Glasco has made fleshing out a more complete pitching staff to keep Canady’s innings down for the WCWS his No. 1 goal for this offseason. He’d like to see Canady pitch nearly 100 innings less during the regular season.
Everyone has their limits. Even the sport’s greatest superstars.
“I hated it,” Glasco said of the first inning. “I hated to see her — I almost switched before, and I wish I would have, but it’s 2-0, and you are used to watching her get out of jam after jam after jam throughout the year and come out when somebody makes a threat, she just usually comes out clean. I was hoping that she would do that one more time.
“But, yeah, definitely the amount of innings got to her.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Texas Tech softball pushed NiJaree Canady to ‘limit’ in WCWS finals