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7 Lessons from the 2025 WCWS
Like many coaches I’m sure, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been telling my students that they should watch the Women’s College World Series games. See what they do and how they do it, because in most cases
it’s a master class in how to play the game.
Students aren’t the only ones who can learn from it, however. There were a lot of lessons in there for coaches at all levels as well.
In some cases it was the strategies those coaches followed, whether it was using the element of surprise (such as a flat-out steal of home) or how they used their lineups. In others it was how they dealt with their players through all the ups and downs of a high-stakes series, or even their body language (or practiced lack of it) when things went wrong.
So with the WCWS now concluded and a champion crowned, I thought it would be a good opportunity to recap and share some of those lessons (in no particular order). Feel free to add any you think I may have missed in the comments.
WARNING: There be spoilers here. If you have games stacked up to watch and are trying to avoid learning the outcomes of those games stop reading now, go fire up your DVR, then come back afterwards.
Individual Greatness Doesn’t Guarantee Success
Ok, quick, think about who were the biggest names going into this year’s WCWS. Odds are most of you thought of three pitchers in particular: Jordy Bahl, Karlyn Pickens, and NiJaree Canady.
They have been the big stories all season, and for good reason. All are spectacular players who make a huge difference for their teams.
Yet only one of those names – NiJaree Canady – was in the final series, and her team did not win the big prize. This is not a knock any of these women, because they are all outstanding.
It is merely an observation that for all their greatness, it wasn’t enough in this particular series. To me, the lesson here is not to get intimidated by facing a superstar and fall into the trap of thinking your team simply can’t match up.
Teagan Kavan, the Ace for Texas had almost double the ERA and WHIP versus NiJaree Canady, almost double the ERA of Karlyn Pickens (although their WHIPs were close), and a somewhat higher ERA and WHIP than Jordy Bahl. Yet in the end Kavan was the one holding the champion’s trophy.
Get out there and play your game as a team and you can overcome multiple hurdles as well.
Riding One Pitcher Doesn’t Work As Well As It Used To
Back in the days of Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Monica Abbott, Lisa Fernandez, etc., teams used to be able to ride the arm of one pitcher all the way to the championship. That is no longer the case.
One reason for that is the change in format, especially for the championship. It used to be you only had to win one final head-to-head matchup to take home the prize. Now, it’s best two out of three, which extends how much a pitcher in particular has to work, especially if you’re the team coming back through the loser’s bracket.
It’s not that today’s athletes are any less than those of the past either. I’d argue they’re probably better trained and better conditioned that even 10 years ago.
But the caliber of play has continued to increase, and every one of the players is now better trained and better conditioned than they used to be, with science and data leading the way. That elevation in performance makes it that much tougher to play at an athlete’s highest level throughout the long, grueling road to the final matchup.
The stress and fatigue of playing on the edge takes it toll, especially on the pitchers who are throwing 100+ pitches per game. And while the effort of pitching in fastpitch softball may not create the same stresses on the body as overhand pitching, repetitive, violent movements executed over and over in a compressed time period are going to take their toll.
Smart teams will be sure to develop a pitching staff and use that staff strategically to preserve their stars for as long as they can. Yes, when you get to the end you’re going to tend to lean on your Ace more.
But the more you can save her for when you need her at the end, the better off you will be.
(NOTE: This is not a critique of either coach in the championship series. This is more advice for youth and high school coaches who over-use their Aces to build their won-loss record instead of thinking ahead to what they will need for the end of the season.)
In a 3-Game Series, Winning Game 1 Is Critical
Winning that first game gives you some luxuries that can help you take the final game.
When you win game one, you have the ability to start someone other than your Ace because worst-case if you lose you still have one more game to try to win it all. You can bring your Ace back fresher, and you won’t have given opposing hitters as many looks at your Ace as they would have had otherwise.
If you lose game one, it’s do-or-die. You need to do what you need to do to keep the series going so you will pretty much be forced to use your Ace. She gets more tired, and opposing hitters get more looks at her in a short period of timing, helping them time her up or learn to see her pitches better.
That makes it rougher to win game three for sure.
Even the Best Players Make Errors Under Pressure
So there’s Texas, sitting on a 10-run lead in the top of the 5th inning with three outs, then two outs, then one out, then one strike to go. One more out and the run rule takes effect, making them the 2025 WCWS champions. I’m sure their pitcher, Teagan Kavan, was looking forward to it all being done since she’d throw her fair share of pitches in the WCWS too.
But then disaster struck. Texas Tech put the ball in play and a throwing error by Texas put what should have been the third out on base. Another throwing error and a couple of hits later the score is now 10-3 and Texas Tech feels revived.
I’m sure the original error was a play they’ve practiced a million times. But in that situation the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag and kept Texas Tech in the ballgame.
That’s something to remember with your own teams. Even the best players make mistakes and/or succumb to pressure. The key is to not hit the panic button (or the scream at players button) and instead keep your cool so the players calm down and get back to business.
Also notice Texas coach Mike White didn’t pull his shortstop in the middle of the inning because she made an error. Instead, he put his faith in her and she made plays later that preserved the win.
It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
Same situation but from the Texas Tech side. It would have been easy for them to say 10-0 was an insurmountable lead and begin to let up a little.
Instead, they battled to the final out, and played like they always believed they could still win it. While it would have been tough, if a few more things went their way who knows?
Every player on that side did their jobs to the best of their ability, always believing they could still take the lead. And for a while there it looked like they might.
Now, one thing they had was the luxury of time. With no time limits and no run limits, they had the potential to score enough runs to get back in the game.
It didn’t happen, but it could have. As long as you’re not restricted by time there’s always that chance you can come back. Keep doing your best and you never know what might happen.
Pay Attention to the Little Opportunities
You have to admit the steal of home by Texas Tech was both fun and a gutsy call. I don’t have any inside information on it, but I’m guessing Coach Gerry Glasco knew it was an opportunity long before he called for it. He just had to wait for the right situation.
In watching the replays, it looked to me like the catcher wasn’t paying attention when she threw the ball back, because who would be crazy enough to try to steal home like that? The Texas Tech runner, though, was on a flat-out sprint from the moment the pitch was released and she ended up scoring pretty much unchallenged.
The lesson her isn’t just to keep awareness of what’s happening when you’re on defense, although that’s important. It’s also to think ahead and see what’s happening on the field when you’re up to bat, to see if there are opportunities to advance baserunners or score without putting the ball in play.
It was a gutsy call for sure. But I doubt it was done without a lot of forethought.
Practice the Little Things Too
On the other side of the coin was the hit off the intentional walk in the first game of the championship series. After throwing the first three balls, NiJaree Canady apparently lost a bit of control on the last pitch and Texas took advantage of it, swinging on a pitch that was too close to the plate while the defense was relaxed knowing it was an intentional walk.
Again, I don’t have any inside information but I’ll bet Texas Tech didn’t spend much time practicing intentional walks. Why would they when they had the two-time NFCA Pitcher of the Year throwing for them? Why would she need to walk anyone intentionally?
So when the situation came up, perhaps she wasn’t quite as ready as she should have been. I know you may be thinking “how hard is it to throw a pitch to a spot off the plate for someone who has pinpoint control everywhere else?”
It’s actually harder than you think, and a skill that has to be practiced like any other. Your pitchers are used to throwing strikes. Throwing a ball on purpose may seem as foreign to them as throwing with the opposite hand.
If you think you might throw an intentional walk, or do anything else out of the ordinary for that matter, be sure you practice it first. The less you leave to chance the better chance you have of it working.
Murphy’s Law In Action
Cindy Bristow once told a clinic full of coaches “My girls make the same mistakes your girls do. They just make them faster.” Over the years I have found that to be true.
If things can go wrong they will go wrong. Nothing you can do will change that.
But you can be as prepared as possible, and remember that no one ever sets out to perform poorly. Those things just happen.
Even the best players and coaches make mistakes or have good intentions blow up in their faces. Hopefully we can all learn from them and use that knowledge to help us get better for the next time.
There’s More to Calling Pitches than Calling Pitches
One of my favorite jokes is about a guy who goes to prison for the first time. As he’s being walked to his cell by a guard he hears a prisoner yell “43!”, which is followed by howls of laughter from the rest of the population.
About 20 seconds later someone else yells out “17!” and again there is laughter. After a couple more numbers are called out the new guy asks his escort what that’s all about.
“A lot of our population has been here a long time and has heard the same jokes over and over,” the guard explains. “To save time, each joke has now been assigned a number. Someone yells the number and the rest react to the joke.”
“Hmmm,” the new guy says to himself, “seems like a good way to try to fit it on day one.” So he takes a deep breath and calls out “26!”, which is followed by silence.
“What happened?” he asks the guard. “Why didn’t anyone laugh?”
To which the guard replies sadly, “I guess some people just don’t know how to tell a joke.”
The same can be said for pitch calling in fastpitch softball. While it might seem straightforward, especially with all the data and charts and documentation available (including this one from me), it’s actually not quite that simple.
The fact is pitch calling is as much art and feel as it is science and data, and like the newbie prisoner trying to fit in, some people have a natural knack for it and some don’t.
That can be a problem because nothing can take down a good or even great pitcher faster than a poor pitch caller.
Here’s an example. There are coaches all over the fastpitch world who apparently believe that pitch speed is everything. As a result, they don’t like to (and in some cases refuse to) call changeups because they believe the only way to get hitters out is to blow the ball by them.
But the reality is even a changeup that’s only fair, or doesn’t get thrown reliably enough for a strike, can still be effective – as long as it’s setting up the next pitch. And if that changeup is a strong one, it can do more to get hitters out than a steady diet of speed. Just ask NiJaree Canady, who can throw 73 mph+ through an entire game but instead leaned heavily on her changeup during the 2024 Women’s College World Series.
The reality is the ability to change speeds, even if it’s going from slow to slower, will be a lot more effective in most cases than having the pitcher throw every pitch at the same speed no matter how fast she is. Sooner or later good hitters will latch onto that speed and the hits will start coming.
There’s also the problem of coaches falling into pitch calling patterns. Remember that great change we were just talking about?
If you’re calling that pitch on every hitter and hitters are having trouble hitting your pitcher’s speed, the hitters can just sit on the changeup and not worry about the rest. It gets even worse if you’re calling a particular pitch on the same count all the time.
A truly great pitch caller is one who can look at a hitter and just feel her weaknesses. That great pitch caller can also see what the last pitch did to the hitter and call the next pitch to throw that hitter off even more.
I’ve watched it happen. When my younger daughter Kim was playing high school ball she had an assistant coach who was a great pitch caller.
She was never overpowering, but she could spot and spin the ball. The coach calling pitches knew her capabilities, and when they went up against a local powerhouse team that had been killing her high school the last few years he used those capabilities to best advantage.
The team lost 2-1, due to errors I might add, but that was a lot better than the 12-1 drubbings they were used to. The coach called pitches to keep the opposing hitters guessing and off-balance all game, Kim executed them beautifully, and they almost pulled off the upset.
The coach didn’t have a big book of tendencies, by the way. He just knew how to take whatever his pitchers had and use it most effectively.
And I guess that’s the last point I want to make. All too often pitch callers think pitchers need to have all these different pitches to be effective.
While that can help, a great pitch caller works with whatever he/she has. If the pitcher only has a fastball and a change, the pitch caller will move the ball around the zone and change speeds seemingly at random.
The hitter can never get comfortable because it’s difficult to cover the entire strike zone effectively.
Add in a drop ball that looks like a fastball coming in and you have a lot to work with. In fact, for some pitch callers that’s about all they can really handle; throw in more pitches and they’re likely not going to understand how to combine them effectively to get hitters out.
Some people have the ability to call pitches natively. They just understand it at the molecular level.
For the rest, it’s a skill that can be learned but you have to put in the time and effort to get good at it, just like the pitchers do to learn the pitches.
Watch games and see how top teams are calling pitches. Track what they’re throwing when – and why.
Look at the hitters, they way they swing the bat, the way they warm up in the on-deck circle, the way they walk, the way they stand, the way they more. All of those parameters will give you clues as to which pitches will work on them.
Then, make sure you understand how they work together for each pitcher. For example, maybe pitcher A doesn’t have a great changeup she can throw for a low strike, but the change of speed or elevation may be just enough to make a high fastball harder to hit on the next pitch.
Your pitchers aren’t robots, they are flesh and blood people. So are the hitters. If you understand what you want to throw and why in each situation you’ll be on your way to becoming a legend as a pitch caller – and a coach your pitchers trust to help them through good times and bad.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 