The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Staff Directory
- Title:
- Assistant Coach, Softball
Handling the pitching duties in her first season on the Forty Acres in 2024, Taylor guided true freshman right-hander Teagan Kavan to unprecedented heights in her first season of collegiate softball. Kavan led all Longhorn pithcers with 20 wins and 135 strikeouts in a team-high 130.2 innings pitched en route to being named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, Softball America Freshman All-American and D1Softball Freshman All-American. Kavan, a two-time Big 12 Pitcher of the Week throughout the 2024 campaign, became the first Texas player to toss a complete game shutout in their Women's College World Series (WCWS) debut and the first freshman Texas pitcher in program history to toss a complete game shutout at the WCWS. Kavan was a Top 10 and Top 25 Finalist for the NFCA Division I Freshman of the Year award, while also picking up NFCA All-America Scholar-Athlete status off the field. Under Taylor's coaching, three different Texas pitchers (Kavan - 20, Mac Morgan - 16, Citlaly Gutierrez - 11) all won 10-or-more games, while a fourth (Estelle Czech) picked up eight victories in the pitching circle. As a result of taking the regular season series against then-No. 1 Oklahoma, winning the Big 12 Conference regular season championship and appearing in the WCWS Championship Series, Taylor and the rest of UT's four-member softball coaching staff were selected as the 2024 ATEC/NFCA Division I Central Regional Coaching Staff of the Year.
Following a two-season stint as the volunteer assistant coach at UConn (2020-21), Taylor spent two seasons (2022-23) as an assistant coach that oversaw the pitching staff of the Lehigh University softball program.
In her first season at Lehigh, Taylor guided a pitching staff that helped Lehigh win its 15th Patriot League tournament championship and first since 2017. Gabriella Nori, who was named the tournament's most valuable player, allowed just one run over her last 20 innings pitched heading into the NCAA Seattle Regional. In 2023, the Lehigh pitching staff posted a 2.73 earned run average (ERA) as the program won 40 games, including a 7-4 win over then-No. 7/9 Alabama as well as winning 16 of 18 Patriot League contests.
During her time with the UConn student-athletes, Taylor coached an AAC Player, two BIG EAST Pitcher and one BIG EAST Freshman of the Week selections. The pitching staff posted a 2.01 ERA, .208 opponent batting average, six shutouts, a no-hitter and a combined no-hitter during the 2020 campaign. The following year, the Huskies struck out 247 batters while posting a 3.24 ERA and a .241 opponent batting average.
A native of Russellville, Tenn., Taylor was a four-year letterwinner (2015-18) at Middle Tennessee State, where she was a National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) All-American Scholar Athlete, two-time C-USA Honor Roll honoree and a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. She earned a bachelors degree in marketing and a masters in leisure and sport management from MTSU.
