College Report: Kaydee Bennett, Texas advance to finals of College World Series

Kaydee Bennett, who grew up in Caddo Mills, is living a softball player’s dream.

Bennett singled and stole a base as the Texas Longhorns beat Tennessee 2-0 on Monday to advance to Wednesday’s finals of the Women’s College World Series. The Longhorns, now 54-11 for the season, advanced to their third World College Series finals in the last four years. In two of those finals they lost to Oklahoma.

In this one they’ll play either Oklahoma or Texas Tech.

Bennett, who previously played college softball at East Texas A&M and Abilene Christian, played second base in Monday’s game. She led off the third inning for the Longhorns with the single, stole second and advanced to third as Texas loaded the bases with one out.

Tennessee pitcher Karlyn Pickens worked out of that jam without giving up a run but later surrendered a home run to Katie Stewart in the fourth inning and then an unearned run in the sixth.

With the loss Tennessee finished the season at 47-17.

Bennett went 0-for-3 at the plate in the Longhorns’ 4-2 win over Oklahoma on Saturday. She had a busy game at second base, recording three putouts and four assists.

Bennett has played in 62 games this season for Texas, starting in 61 of them. She is batting .252 for the season with an on-base percentage of .337.

She was a standout at Caddo Mills High School in softball, volleyball and track and field.