Texas vs Texas Tech softball lookback: How WCWS finalists fared in regular season
Texas vs Texas Tech softball lookback: How WCWS finalists fared in regular season
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Why Texas Tech, Texas will win 2025 WCWS
It's a Lone Star State Women's College World Series this year, and reporter Jenni Carlson breaks down one reason Texas Tech will win and one reason Texas will win the WCWS.
When Texas and Texas Tech likely deploy ace pitchers Teagan Kavan and NiJaree Canady on June 4 for Game 1 of the national championship series, it won't be the first time either arm has faced off this season.
Kavan and Canady, who have led the Longhorns and Red Raiders, respectively, to undefeated showings at the Women's College World Series this season, met early in the regular season. Texas got the best of Texas Tech in both of their meetings, coming away with a 2-1 win and an 11-0 run-rule two days later.
Kavan and Canady have been paramount to their teams' success in the postseason: Kavan has allowed two runs in 17 innings at the WCWS, whereas Canady has surrendered three in 21 innings.
Both programs are looking for their first national championship in program history in 2025, and their early season-matchup proved to be a preview of the title series nearly four months later. Here's a look back at Texas and Texas Tech's regular season matchups in February:
Texas vs Texas Tech regular season matchups
Texas and Texas Tech's first of two matchups during the regular season was quite the pitchers' duel, as the Longhorns needed nine innings to come away with a 2-1 win. Kavan and Canady both pitched complete games in the extra-innings duel on Feb. 14, with Kavan edging out Canady behind perhaps the best performance of her college career so far.
Kavan tossed nine innings with a whopping 18 strikeouts, allowing one run on four hits against the Red Raiders lineup. Nine of her 18 strikeouts came against Texas Tech's 1-2-3 hitters of Mihyia Davis, Alana Johnson and Lauren Allred, who have all been huge contributors during the Red Raiders' postseason run.
Canady, meanwhile, pitched eight innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on seven hits with 11 strikeouts.
Texas walked off Canady and Texas Tech in the ninth inning after Joley Mitchell and Leighann Goode led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Mitchell scored the game-winning run on a fielder's choice and a throwing error later in the frame.
Texas Tech took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning on a single by Anya German, before Texas tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth inning on a double from Mia Scott. Two days later on Feb. 16, Texas defeated Texas Tech 11-0 in five innings, although Canady didn't pitch in the game.
Canady has pitched nearly every inning in the postseason, including every pitch from the super regionals onward. It doesn't seem like the former National Player of the Year is going to let anyone else pitch in the national championship series.
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Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
WCWS' mad carnival meets an NBA Finals stunner: Two days in Oklahoma City's sports vortex
OKLAHOMA CITY — To begin with, the Church of Thunder is not a church. There are a dozen pews, yes, but they were found on Facebook Marketplace. There is reverence, but it is aimed at the basketball game on a projector screen anchored to pallets of beer. This is why the people gather in a warehouse on Thursday. The biblical rains have passed. Time to praise and, with any luck, celebrate the local professional basketball franchise as it starts the NBA Finals about a mile away. Shai's will be done. Or something like that. Advertisement 'The little things we do have to cheer, we're going to cheer as loud as we can for them,' says Nick Williams, the co-owner of Lively Beerworks and founder of this ad hoc place of worship. At almost the same time, not even 15 minutes away, another event creates its own gravitational pull. The Women's College World Series championship round has a one-night head start and some complications from being an outdoor sport played after a deluge, but it, too, has thousands of people pushing through the gates to watch. A city that didn't exist a century and a half ago, a town off the major-sport grid when century started, is the latest magnetic north for sports. But seeing it is believing it. Two days, one city, two championship events separated by 7 miles and juxtaposed in scope and spirit. The people here might insist the local ethos threads them together. To an extent, this is true. But the Women's College World Series feels intimate, very much of this place even as the sport swells in popularity. The NBA Finals? That's an everywhere phenomenon, as hard as anyone tries to rope it in. And the local basketball club increasingly belongs to those far beyond city limits. The tension is kind of cool. There's ambition and audacity all over a big place that's big, but also isn't. By area, Oklahoma City is the 10th-largest city in the country. By population, it's 20th, and rising. 'The Modern Frontier' is the slogan on the digital billboard next to the Amtrak station, for visitors who need to know the gist. A town birthed by a high-noon land rush now has a light-rail loop and lovely botanical gardens with a THUNDER UP sign at the southeast corner. Also, there's an American Banjo Museum and a civic issues forum on the website OKC Talk that, as of June 4, was topped by a thread titled 'Urban Chickens.' Advertisement Put another way: In one of our nation's swiftest-growing cities, it's still not uncommon to hit a downtown crosswalk button and have your request granted instantly. And on the morning of the day everything starts happening, nothing much is happening. Fairly, eight tornados touching ground around here on Tuesday night might have stubbed some momentum. (The Pacers' team plane, as was widely noted, diverted to Tulsa for refueling after circling Will Rogers International Airport while a virile storm cell passed through.) In any case, this confluence of championship events officially begins with a Wednesday that's little more than an overcast Wednesday. There's 'Downtown OKC Day' festivities in a small green space across from the Chamber of Commerce building, but it's effectively two and a half hours of food trucks, music over loudspeakers and free swag around lunchtime. A few blocks away, on the park lawn where a pregame fan extravaganza will take place before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, people play Wiffle ball. The soundtrack is train horns and hedge trimmers. A vibe, it is not. Yet. Advertisement Then again, being here on these two days requires a little recalibration on what it means for something to happen. The Women's College World Series, or the championship round anyway, is not a rager. Not on this weekday. The mostly empty parking lot three hours before first pitch makes that clear. Cars arrive steadily, but there appear to be exactly two patches of tailgaters. Had Oklahoma earned a spot for the fifth consecutive season, the scene could be different. As it is, for a long while late Wednesday afternoon, the scene is a weekend travel softball tournament with a nicer stadium. And this is the point. This is the soul of the thing. No one goes to a state fair to hang out in the lot. You go in and do all the things. So it is at Devon Park, the softball capital of the world. The fans show up to wait — for the gates to open, for a chance to browse the official merchandise tent, in a line to meet some relatively famous local. In this case, the local is former Oklahoma All-American catcher Kinzie Hansen, a member of the Team USA softball roster. (No, Texas Tech alum, superfan and most famous quarterback alive Patrick Mahomes is not on hand.) The queue to meet Hansen snakes through the softball Hall of Fame well before the appointed 5:30 p.m. start time. LIMIT TO 1 ITEM PER PERSON, per the sign at the head of the line. Efficiency is paramount when people of all ages and allegiances fill and refill the space; a Texas fan even gets Hansen to smile and flash a 'Horns Down' sign in a picture for posterity. Advertisement 'Perfect,' Hansen says, and it's on to the next neon yellow orb to inscribe. Across the parking lot, there's less of a wait for a different kind of special guest: The Larry O'Brien Trophy, soon to be awarded to a new NBA champ, sits inside a small tent and is available for still-life picture-taking. (As long as patrons download the NBA app first, naturally.) Inside the park, along the third-base concourse, it's a bacchanal of artery-cloggers: a booth for funnel cakes and corn dogs, another for hand-popped kettle corn delivered in bags as big as a toddler, another for Big O's Pork barbecue fare. Red and black and burnt orange everywhere, broken up by more than a few club softball jersey color schemes. Some 12,000-plus, shoulder to shoulder, happily waiting to consume whatever's next. Is Texas Tech stretching an hour before the game something? Anything? Here, yes, apparently, as Red Raiders faithful line the first-base wall to watch. 'The fans showed out,' Texas coach Mike White says after a Game 1 win, cinched by a two-run single from Longhorns catcher Reese Atwood on what was supposed to be an intentional walk from Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady. 'I've never had that happen to me,' Atwood says, not long after Canady could be heard sobbing in the hallway outside the interview room. Only in the throes of softball's mad carnival. Advertisement A slow burn removes the cloud cover the next day, putting some literal light on downtown visitors filling $10 pay lots and office-dwellers taking lunch breaks in Thunder gear. (It's not everyone. But it's enough to suggest a few peppy intra-office memos were sent this week.) For some, this will forever be an NBA franchise appropriated from elsewhere. For those who enjoy the team being here, however it got to the corner of Reno Avenue and Thunder Drive, it's likely motivation to double down on some parochiality: a metro area pulling a team close and shouting for more than 17 years. This return to the NBA Finals, though, might be loosening the grip. Everyone may have to learn to share. A young and energized group, led by the league's young and energized Most Valuable Player in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is not darling. They're closer to the next version of the Golden State Warriors, mesmerizing young fans coast-to-coast and burrowing into their bandwagons. You can imagine a generation chopping it up about 'OKC' without caring a whole lot about what the letters stand for. Maybe the actual OKC is OK with that. Not far from Paycom Center, there's a Flaming Lips Alley and a Kings of Leon Lane and a Mickey Mantle Drive. Entities grounded around here, one way or another, that became property of a much wider world. This seems to be a matter of acceptance, not resentment. 'I don't do a whole lot of traveling anymore,' says Andrew Smith, Duncan, Okla., native and the general manager at Fassler Hall in the city's Midtown neighborhood. 'But if I was out in Chicago or in New Jersey and I saw people in a Thunder jersey, I would think that was amazing. Because it's our team.' Advertisement Finding Fassler Hall isn't entirely intuitive — it's off the street, with an arrow pointing you up some stairs in the same direction of an orthodontic arts office — thus the rebranding. Massive white Gothic lettering on the back wall of the building, in fact: Thunder Hall. The same logo adorns the black T-shirt worn by staffers, too. A German-inspired beer hall all-in on the local pro basketball outfit since wintertime, when the Thunder contacted some of the larger local venues and floated the idea of establishing official watch party spots. Thus the soccer-style team and playoff banners hanging from the ceiling on the inside. To be part of this is good business, of course, but also something more. 'We get a lot of pride out of how well the Thunder does,' Smith says. 'It shows we can be a top-tier city and a top-tier state.' By 3 p.m. on game day, there's already one dude with a stein and an orange Gilgeous-Alexander jersey at a picnic table on the massive patio, with a clear view of the outdoor big screen past the pingpong tables. What's a small trickle of patrons at this hour is expected to multiply into a capacity crowd, just as it did for each of the Western Conference finals games. First, a most appropriate prelude. The skies darken. The wind picks up. A cell of thunder, lighting and heavy rain consumes the area, as if literal forces of nature wished to remind everyone what sort of city claims the Oklahoma City Thunder, no matter how many people claim it elsewhere. It's a suboptimal outcome for the home team's standard pregame outdoor fan experience at Scissortail Park, which is forced into its own holding pattern while the weather blasts the grounds. It's still nothing quite like the line that spit out those tornados on the eve of the NCAA softball championship round. So, as Texas Tech and Texas prepare for Game 2 a few miles away, there might be some worries about long delays and a longer night. But there's a roof on the Paycom Center. And one over the headquarters of Lively Beerworks, a.k.a. the Church of Thunder, and all the local laic worship spots like it. Advertisement The show rolls on here. And everywhere. As with most good ideas revolving around sports and adult beverages, the Church of Thunder was born out of the desire to have a fun time watching basketball — and the lack of available bleachers to rent. 'We had the space, and I was like, why not?' Williams says. The team becoming one of the best in the world turned it into a genius business plan. For Game 1 on Thursday, the extra chairs stationed at the end of the dozen pews aren't enough. Out come more white folding chairs, creating six additional rows of seating. It's still not sufficient. Late-comers stand on the side and scramble for slivers of space. So it goes with services on a holiday. The first bucket for the home team is met with cheers and a thudding chorus of inflatable Thunderstix. So is the second. Briefly, the signal goes out and the screens go black. Everyone boos. Seconds later the signal reboots. Everyone cheers. A 3-pointer from Gilgeous-Alexander follows and the place is up for grabs as much as a smallish warehouse can be. Advertisement A single basket or quarter or half or game isn't worth living and dying over. The entire history of the NBA proves that. It's not terribly different up the road at the softball championships, where even the most consequential sequence can be upended by a bit of ridiculousness no one has seen before. And yet, over two nights, the sports-goers in this city are dead and resurrected a lot. By the end of Thursday night, with Mahomes indeed in attendance at Devon Park, Canady finds redemption in the circle and Texas Tech hangs on by a half a fingernail to win 4-3 and force a decisive Game 3 against Texas. The Thunder, in some ways bearing expectations that are more than a hundred years old, collapse under it. Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton's go-ahead shot with 0.3 seconds remaining foists a 111-110 Pacers win upon an expectant city. Postgame lamentations fill the streets for a minute. But the night gets much quieter, much quicker, than anyone here might have hoped. This is Oklahoma City. The truth of this place is a torment and a refuge. Anything can happen now. Advertisement The Athletic This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA, Culture, College Sports, 2025 NBA playoffs, A1: Must-Read Stories, Women's College Sports 2025 The Athletic Media Company
USA Today
23 minutes ago
- USA Today
Women's College Softball World Series championship series Game 3 history
Women's College Softball World Series championship series Game 3 history Show Caption Hide Caption How the SEC's softball dominance could carry it through to the Women's College World Series The Oklahoman's Jenni Carlson shares the top storylines she's following through the NCAA softball tournament, starting with the SEC's biggest strengths. The saying is "There's nothing like Game 7 in sports." The same is true of Game 3 of the championship series in the Women's College World Series. The 2025 season will conclude on Friday at Devon Park in Oklahoma City with a rare treat for college softball fans: a Game 3. For the seventh time since the WCWS adopted the best-of-three-game series format in 2025, everything will come down to a winner-take-all game. No. 6 Texas will take on No. 12 Texas Tech at 8 p.m. ET to determine which of the programs from the Lone Star State will collect their first national championship in the sport. Here's what you need to know about the history of Game 3s in the WCWS: How many Game 3s have there been in WCWS finals history? The Texas-Texas Tech Game 3 on Friday will be the seventh WCWS in championship series history since the format was adopted in 2005. This will be the first one since Oklahoma stormed back from a 1-0 deficit against Florida State to win two straight to begin their dynastic four-peat. The first Game 3 occurred the same year the new format was put in place. UCLA defeated Michigan 5-0 in Game 1, but the Wolverines earned 5-2 and 4-1 wins to win the national title. That Game 3 actually lasted 10 innings before Michigan pulled away late. The 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2016 Women's College World Series also went the full three games. The winner of Game 1 only won the national championship in just 2015 and 2016 WCWS. Texas-Texas Tech 2025 WCWS Texas opened with a 2-1 victory over Texas Tech on a clutch hit from catcher Reese Atwood. The Red Raiders were carried by NiJaree Canady in Game 2 to force the winner-takes-all Game 3. Game 1: Texas 2, Texas Tech 1 Texas 2, Texas Tech 1 Game 2: Texas Tech 4, Texas 3 Texas Tech 4, Texas 3 Game 3: Texas vs. Texas Tech, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN) Oklahoma stuns Florida State in 2021 WCWS Florida State's offense broke out for eight runs in Game 1 to down Oklahoma in the opener. However, Giselle Juarez and the Sooners limited the Seminoles to just three runs over the next two games to win the fifth national championship in program history. Game 1: Florida State 8, Oklahoma 4 Florida State 8, Oklahoma 4 Game 2: Oklahoma 6, Florida State 2 Oklahoma 6, Florida State 2 Game 3: Oklahoma 5, Florida State 1 Oklahoma defeats Auburn in 3 games for 2016 WCWS title After taking a close victory in Game 1, the Sooners jumped out to a 7-0 lead through two innings against Auburn in Game 2 of the 2016 WCWS. However, the Tigers scored 11 consecutive runs, including four on a grand slam by Emily Carosone in the eighth inning. Paige Parker limited Auburn to one run in a gem to win Game 3. Game 1: Oklahoma 3, Auburn 2 Oklahoma 3, Auburn 2 Game 2: Auburn 11, Oklahoma 7 (8 innings) Auburn 11, Oklahoma 7 (8 innings) Game 3: Oklahoma 2, Auburn 1 Florida defeats Michigan to repeat as champions in 2015 WCWS Michigan made Florida earn a repeat in the 2015 WCWS. The Gators took Game 1 3-2, but the Wolverines earned a 1-0 win in Game 2 to force Game 3. That's when Florida ace Lauren Haeger took over in a 4-1 Gators' win. She limited Michigan to one run on five hits in her complete game bid. She struck out five and walked one. Game 1: Florida 3, Michigan 2 Florida 3, Michigan 2 Game 2: Michigan 1, Florida 0 Michigan 1, Florida 0 Game 3: Florida 4, Michigan 1 Alabama overcomes 1-0 deficit to win first SEC softball championship in 2012 Alabama won the first-ever softball national championship in school history and the first for the SEC after falling behind the Sooners at multiple points. The Sooners took Game 1, but Alabama bounced back with an 8-6 Game 2 win. In Game 3, the Crimson Tide trailed 3-0 but scored four runs in a rain delay extended fourth inning to pull off the comeback. Game 1: Oklahoma 4, Alabama 1 Oklahoma 4, Alabama 1 Game 2: Alabama 8, Oklahoma 6 Alabama 8, Oklahoma 6 Game 3: Alabama 5, Oklahoma 4 Arizona takes down Tennessee in 2007 WCWS Arizona did not score a run until the 10th inning of Game 2 of the championship series in the WCWS in 2007, but the Wildcats still took the series. After winning 1-0 in 10 innings in Game 2 to even the series, Taryne Mowatt delivered a gem with 11 strikeouts in a 5-0 Arizona Game 3 win. Game 1: Tennessee 3, Arizona 0 Tennessee 3, Arizona 0 Game 2: Arizona 1, Tennessee 0 (10 innings) Arizona 1, Tennessee 0 (10 innings) Game 3: Arizona 5, Tennessee 0 Michigan knocks off UCLA to win 2005 WCWS for first title In the very first WCWS championship series, three games were not nearly enough for UCLA and Michigan. After splitting the first two games, the third and deciding game went to extra innings. Samantha Findlay hit a three-run home run in the top of the 10th to help the Wolverines win their first national championship in school history. She actually drove in all four runs for Michigan in the championship game. Game 1: UCLA 5, Michigan 0 UCLA 5, Michigan 0 Game 2: Michigan 5, UCLA 2 Michigan 5, UCLA 2 Game 3: Michigan 4, UCLA 1 (10 innings) The biggest stories, every morning. Stay up-to-date on all the key sports developments by subscribing to USA TODAY Sports' newsletter.
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
WCWS' mad carnival meets an NBA Finals stunner: Two days in Oklahoma City's sports vortex
OKLAHOMA CITY — To begin with, the Church of Thunder is not a church. There are a dozen pews, yes, but they were found on Facebook Marketplace. There is reverence, but it is aimed at the basketball game on a projector screen anchored to pallets of beer. This is why the people gather in a warehouse on Thursday. The biblical rains have passed. Time to praise and, with any luck, celebrate the local professional basketball franchise as it starts the NBA Finals about a mile away. Advertisement Shai's will be done. Or something like that. 'The little things we do have to cheer, we're going to cheer as loud as we can for them,' says Nick Williams, the co-owner of Lively Beerworks and founder of this ad hoc place of worship. At almost the same time, not even 15 minutes away, another event creates its own gravitational pull. The Women's College World Series championship round has a one-night head start and some complications from being an outdoor sport played after a deluge, but it, too, has thousands of people pushing through the gates to watch. A city that didn't exist a century and a half ago, a town off the major-sport grid when this century started, is the latest magnetic north for sports. But seeing it is believing it. Two days, one city, two championship events separated by 7 miles and juxtaposed in scope and spirit. The people here might insist the local ethos threads them together. To an extent, this is true. But the Women's College World Series feels intimate, very much of this place even as the sport swells in popularity. The NBA Finals? That's an everywhere phenomenon, as hard as anyone tries to rope it in. And the local basketball club increasingly belongs to those far beyond city limits. The tension is kind of cool. There's ambition and audacity all over a big place that's big, but also isn't. By area, Oklahoma City is the 10th-largest city in the country. By population, it's 20th, and rising. 'The Modern Frontier' is the slogan on the digital billboard next to the Amtrak station, for visitors who need to know the gist. A town birthed by a high-noon land rush now has a light-rail loop and lovely botanical gardens with a THUNDER UP sign at the southeast corner. Also, there's an American Banjo Museum and a civic issues forum on the website OKC Talk that, as of June 4, was topped by a thread titled 'Urban Chickens.' Advertisement Put another way: In one of our nation's swiftest-growing cities, it's still not uncommon to hit a downtown crosswalk button and have your request granted instantly. And on the morning of the day everything starts happening, nothing much is happening. Fairly, eight tornados touching ground around here on Tuesday night might have stubbed some momentum. (The Pacers' team plane, as was widely noted, diverted to Tulsa for refueling after circling Will Rogers International Airport while a virile storm cell passed through.) In any case, this confluence of championship events officially begins with a Wednesday that's little more than an overcast Wednesday. There's 'Downtown OKC Day' festivities in a small green space across from the Chamber of Commerce building, but it's effectively two and a half hours of food trucks, music over loudspeakers and free swag around lunchtime. A few blocks away, on the park lawn where a pregame fan extravaganza will take place before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, people play Wiffle ball. The soundtrack is train horns and hedge trimmers. A vibe, it is not. Yet. Then again, being here on these two days requires a little recalibration on what it means for something to happen. The Women's College World Series, or the championship round anyway, is not a rager. Not on this weekday. The mostly empty parking lot three hours before first pitch makes that clear. Cars arrive steadily, but there appear to be exactly two patches of tailgaters. Had Oklahoma earned a spot for the fifth consecutive season, the scene could be different. As it is, for a long while late Wednesday afternoon, the scene is a weekend travel softball tournament with a nicer stadium. And this is the point. This is the soul of the thing. No one goes to a state fair to hang out in the lot. You go in and do all the things. So it is at Devon Park, the softball capital of the world. Advertisement The fans show up to wait — for the gates to open, for a chance to browse the official merchandise tent, in a line to meet some relatively famous local. In this case, the local is former Oklahoma All-American catcher Kinzie Hansen, a member of the Team USA softball roster. (No, Texas Tech alum, superfan and most famous quarterback alive Patrick Mahomes is not on hand.) The queue to meet Hansen snakes through the softball Hall of Fame well before the appointed 5:30 p.m. start time. LIMIT TO 1 ITEM PER PERSON, per the sign at the head of the line. Efficiency is paramount when people of all ages and allegiances fill and refill the space; a Texas fan even gets Hansen to smile and flash a 'Horns Down' sign in a picture for posterity. 'Perfect,' Hansen says, and it's on to the next neon yellow orb to inscribe. Across the parking lot, there's less of a wait for a different kind of special guest: The Larry O'Brien Trophy, soon to be awarded to a new NBA champ, sits inside a small tent and is available for still-life picture-taking. (As long as patrons download the NBA app first, naturally.) Inside the park, along the third-base concourse, it's a bacchanal of artery-cloggers: a booth for funnel cakes and corn dogs, another for hand-popped kettle corn delivered in bags as big as a toddler, another for Big O's Pork barbecue fare. Red and black and burnt orange everywhere, broken up by more than a few club softball jersey color schemes. Some 12,000-plus, shoulder to shoulder, happily waiting to consume whatever's next. Is Texas Tech stretching an hour before the game something? Anything? Here, yes, apparently, as Red Raiders faithful line the first-base wall to watch. 'The fans showed out,' Texas coach Mike White says after a Game 1 win, cinched by a two-run single from Longhorns catcher Reese Atwood on what was supposed to be an intentional walk from Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady. 'I've never had that happen to me,' Atwood says, not long after Canady could be heard sobbing in the hallway outside the interview room. Only in the throes of softball's mad carnival. A slow burn removes the cloud cover the next day, putting some literal light on downtown visitors filling $10 pay lots and office-dwellers taking lunch breaks in Thunder gear. (It's not everyone. But it's enough to suggest a few peppy intra-office memos were sent this week.) For some, this will forever be an NBA franchise appropriated from elsewhere. For those who enjoy the team being here, however it got to the corner of Reno Avenue and Thunder Drive, it's likely motivation to double down on some parochiality: a metro area pulling a team close and shouting Mine now! for more than 17 years. This return to the NBA Finals, though, might be loosening the grip. Everyone may have to learn to share. A young and energized group, led by the league's young and energized Most Valuable Player in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is not darling. They're closer to the next version of the Golden State Warriors, mesmerizing young fans coast-to-coast and burrowing into their bandwagons. You can imagine a generation chopping it up about 'OKC' without caring a whole lot about what the letters stand for. Advertisement Maybe the actual OKC is OK with that. Not far from Paycom Center, there's a Flaming Lips Alley and a Kings of Leon Lane and a Mickey Mantle Drive. Entities grounded around here, one way or another, that became property of a much wider world. This seems to be a matter of acceptance, not resentment. 'I don't do a whole lot of traveling anymore,' says Andrew Smith, Duncan, Okla., native and the general manager at Fassler Hall in the city's Midtown neighborhood. 'But if I was out in Chicago or in New Jersey and I saw people in a Thunder jersey, I would think that was amazing. Because it's our team.' Finding Fassler Hall isn't entirely intuitive — it's off the street, with an arrow pointing you up some stairs in the same direction of an orthodontic arts office — thus the rebranding. Massive white Gothic lettering on the back wall of the building, in fact: Thunder Hall. The same logo adorns the black T-shirt worn by staffers, too. A German-inspired beer hall all-in on the local pro basketball outfit since wintertime, when the Thunder contacted some of the larger local venues and floated the idea of establishing official watch party spots. Thus the soccer-style team and playoff banners hanging from the ceiling on the inside. To be part of this is good business, of course, but also something more. 'We get a lot of pride out of how well the Thunder does,' Smith says. 'It shows we can be a top-tier city and a top-tier state.' By 3 p.m. on game day, there's already one dude with a stein and an orange Gilgeous-Alexander jersey at a picnic table on the massive patio, with a clear view of the outdoor big screen past the pingpong tables. What's a small trickle of patrons at this hour is expected to multiply into a capacity crowd, just as it did for each of the Western Conference finals games. First, a most appropriate prelude. The skies darken. The wind picks up. A cell of actual thunder, lighting and heavy rain consumes the area, as if literal forces of nature wished to remind everyone what sort of city claims the Oklahoma City Thunder, no matter how many people claim it elsewhere. It's a suboptimal outcome for the home team's standard pregame outdoor fan experience at Scissortail Park, which is forced into its own holding pattern while the weather blasts the grounds. It's still nothing quite like the line that spit out those tornados on the eve of the NCAA softball championship round. So, as Texas Tech and Texas prepare for Game 2 a few miles away, there might be some worries about long delays and a longer night. But there's a roof on the Paycom Center. And one over the headquarters of Lively Beerworks, a.k.a. the Church of Thunder, and all the local laic worship spots like it. The show rolls on here. And everywhere. Advertisement As with most good ideas revolving around sports and adult beverages, the Church of Thunder was born out of the desire to have a fun time watching basketball — and the lack of available bleachers to rent. 'We had the space, and I was like, why not?' Williams says. The team becoming one of the best in the world turned it into a genius business plan. For Game 1 on Thursday, the extra chairs stationed at the end of the dozen pews aren't enough. Out come more white folding chairs, creating six additional rows of seating. It's still not sufficient. Late-comers stand on the side and scramble for slivers of space. So it goes with services on a holiday. The first bucket for the home team is met with cheers and a thudding chorus of inflatable Thunderstix. So is the second. Briefly, the signal goes out and the screens go black. Everyone boos. Seconds later the signal reboots. Everyone cheers. A 3-pointer from Gilgeous-Alexander follows and the place is up for grabs as much as a smallish warehouse can be. A single basket or quarter or half or game isn't worth living and dying over. The entire history of the NBA proves that. It's not terribly different up the road at the softball championships, where even the most consequential sequence can be upended by a bit of ridiculousness no one has seen before. And yet, over two nights, the sports-goers in this city are dead and resurrected a lot. By the end of Thursday night, with Mahomes indeed in attendance at Devon Park, Canady finds redemption in the circle and Texas Tech hangs on by a half a fingernail to win 4-3 and force a decisive Game 3 against Texas. The Thunder, in some ways bearing expectations that are more than a hundred years old, collapse under it. Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton's go-ahead shot with 0.3 seconds remaining foists a 111-110 Pacers win upon an expectant city. Postgame lamentations fill the streets for a minute. But the night gets much quieter, much quicker, than anyone here might have hoped. This is Oklahoma City. The truth of this place is a torment and a refuge. Anything can happen now. (Illustration: Kelsea Peterson / The Athletic; photos: Zach Beeker, William Purnell, David Sherman / Getty; Nathan J. Fish / The Oklahoman)
