How Liberty conquered No. 1 Texas A&M to reach first-ever super regionals: ‘A true David and Goliath thing'
If you're going to slay a giant, you're going to need a good scouting report.
Down 3-1 with two outs and a man on second, Savannah Jessee had one. She knew what was coming.
By the third and final game between Liberty and Texas A&M on Sunday in the NCAA softball tournament regional round, Jessee said she had learned pitcher Emiley Kennedy's tendencies. Jessee had a hunch Kennedy would try to even the count on her next pitch, so she readied her swing.
'I knew that pitch was going to be right where I wanted it to be,' Jessee said in a news conference Tuesday. 'I saw it well. I was perfectly on time and I was able to stay through it and put it over.'
Savannah Jessee ties it up‼️
📺- @ESPNPlus #NoLimitsOnUs | @LibertySB pic.twitter.com/DUsldwkr08
— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) May 19, 2025
Jessee hammered a home run over left field, bringing in two runs and tying the score at 3. Three batters later, with runners on first and third and Grace Sparks on the mound after a Texas A&M pitching change, Rachel Roupe enacted the same strategy as Jessee. The Conference USA Softball Player of the Year took the first pitch to get her timing down, she said, before seeing the next pitch right where she wanted.
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She swung and watched as the ball hit the scoreboard and ricocheted back onto the field. Roupe's blast gave Liberty a 6-3 pad.
'I was just trying to get the ball in play,' Roupe said in Tuesday's news conference. 'That's when you hit your home runs, when you're not trying.'
RACHEL ROUPE DOES IT AGAIN 💣💣💣
📺- @ESPNPlus #NoLimitsOnUs | @LibertySB pic.twitter.com/lMg0DUGRJB
— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) May 19, 2025
Roupe's hit proved the victorious one. The Flames gave up two runs in the bottom of the sixth and none in the seventh for the 6-5 victory. Their takedown of the Aggies was the first time in tournament history that the No. 1 seed did not advance out of the regional round. It also marked Liberty's first-ever run to the super regionals.
'It was a true David and Goliath thing,' Jessee said.
David and Goliath is a biblical tale of a young shepherd boy David, who challenges and defeats a giant, Goliath, with only a sling and stones. With God's help, the story says, David struck the giant in the forehead, killing him.
Many players on Liberty, an evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Va., are strong in their religious beliefs. Coach Dot Richardson said Tuesday that much of the game plan is contingent on God's plan — like drawing Goliath-like Texas A&M in the first place. The team's belief that everything happens according to God's will allows them to play freely and unbothered, she said.
'I am not surprised where we are because they just play with so much freedom,' Richardson said. 'That's what happens when you see great athletes play with freedom, great things happen.'
Leading 6-5 in the bottom of the seventh of Game 7, Liberty's Kaylan Yoder took that liberation with her to the mound. She needed three outs to send her team to the supers. She got them in five batters.
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'It's all God, man,' she said May 20 on Delmarva Sports Network. 'That's the only thing I can give credit to because I went out and I never felt so much peace in a big moment.'
All thanks to her own advice.
'The last game, Yoder told me, 'When you're struggling and there's a big moment, sometimes I either think about nothing or I think about the Lord,'' Jessee said. 'That's what she told me before I went up and hit my home run, and I told her the same thing when she went out to pitch.'
But Liberty's conquest of the giant didn't happen overnight.
It took years for the program to recruit talent and build the depth required to beat an SEC powerhouse in the postseason. Before 2025, Liberty made — and lost — four regional finals.
Last year, No. 11 Georgia beat Liberty 3-2 in the regional final on a walk-off win. In 2023, San Diego State rallied from an early 2-0 hole to best the Flames in the final, and James Madison posted a five-run fifth inning to send Liberty home in the finals the year before that. South Carolina beat Liberty both times in the finals to advance out of its 2018 regionals.
This year, the Flames were CUSA regular-season and tournament champions for the second year in a row. Led by star hitters Roupe, Jessee, KK Madrey, Paige Doerr and Savannah Woodard, they made their eighth playoff appearance and are one of two teams (Miami Ohio) outside the Power 4 conferences to appear in each of the last five regionals.
The Flames knew 2025 should've been a season of reclaiming a regionals victory instead of continuing to seek their first one. After a 10-5 victory over Marist on May 16, Liberty matched up against Texas A&M for the first time in the tournament the following day.
There, the Flames stunned the Aggies 8-5. That's when Jessee realized Liberty was in the driver's seat and this time — needing only one more win as opposed to Texas A&M's two — it wouldn't relinquish control of the wheel.
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'I just knew when we won that game that we were gonna win the whole thing,' Jessee said of the regional round.
Liberty plays No. 14 Oregon in the super regional round starting Friday at 10 p.m. ET in Eugene. The schools have met in other sports this academic year: Oregon football thumped Liberty 45-6 in the 2024 Fiesta Bowl and Oregon men's basketball blew out Liberty 81-52 in the 2025 NCAA Tournament first round. But Roupe is looking forward to the chance to even the scales.
'I'm so excited for a women's team to get the job done,' she said.
(Top photo of Liberty players celebrating in a game this spring: Michael Wyke / AP Photo)
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