Texas softball headed into the 2025 season with big championship aspirations after a devastating loss in the Women’s College World Series championship series in 2024. The Longhorns looked to get back and play for the title once again.
But those aspirations seemingly faded before any games were played at Red and Charline McCombs Field in 2025. The Longhorns lost their All-American shortstop, junior Viviana Martinez, in the fall to a season-ending, noncontact knee injury.
With the spot needing to be replaced quickly, junior utility infielder Leighann Goode was the one selected to step into the role.
“Stepping up for Vivi is big shoes to fill, without a doubt, she’s done a good job there for us,” head coach Mike White said early in the season. “It was a competitive environment in the fall, trying to find out who was going to take that spot, and we tried several people, but (Goode) was the one who came through in the end.”
The junior needed a mindset shift heading into her third season with the Longhorns. She did not see much playing time in her second year, starting in 22 games all season. So, in the offseason, the junior went to work.
“I worked big on my mindset and just challenged myself mentally to be able to be in this position for my team and help my team out,” Goode said.
The mindset shift paid off as she stepped up in a big way across the season, playing all 66 games with a batting average close to .300, a career-high in RBIs with 43 and another in home runs with 10.
Goode became an even bigger piece for the Longhorns in the postseason with big performances in the Super Regional round, where the Longhorns defeated Clemson in a three-game series after the Tigers won Game One. In the series, Goode was 7-11 at the plate for an impressive .636 batting average, four RBIs and one home run across three games.
“I was just sticking to my approach and just having confidence in myself and having that positive self-talk,” Goode said. “Coach White always preaches positive self-talk and having that right mindset, you can’t make things happen, so if you’re in that right mindset, things are going to fall through for you.”
In the deciding Game Three of the championship series against Texas Tech, Goode came up big once again. A three-run home run from Goode in the first inning got the Longhorns out to an early lead. Goode struggled in the first two games of the series, going 1-5 with a lone RBI.
But struggles were no stranger to Goode at points in the season, as she learned to adjust to her new position.
“I think when I was younger, a freshman, sophomore, I wouldn’t take failure as a stepping point to the next thing, I would see failure as just failure,” she said. “But now I can see failure as working towards that next step to being successful, so just taking that failure and putting that mindset that ‘Hey, that actually helps me,’ and to move on from it.”
Hope seemed dim when Martinez went down in the fall, but here Texas was, up by six in the third and final game of the Women’s College World Series championship game. It would be only fate for the struggling sophomore, turned star junior, to make the play for the final out of the season.
And here Goode was, hurling a softball across the infield to make such a play. A perfect throw to Joley Mitchell, the first baseman, to wrap up a season that will always be remembered for Texas softball.
Texas, world series champions, partially because of a good play, but more so because Goode refused to give up. By choosing past failures to drive future success, Goode and Texas softball found it.
