WCWS exit ends careers for OSU’s foundational players
Exactly 600 times over the past five years, Oklahoma State softball coach Kenny Gajewski has written one of these three names onto a lineup card: Kiley Naomi, Chyenne Factor and Taylor Tuck.
Six hundred times.
In that span, the trio combined for 517 hits, 386 runs scored and 77 home runs.
Yet the legacy they'll leave behind is much bigger than the numbers they've accumulated.
Those three Cowgirls, along with teammates Morgyn Wynne and Rachel Becker, saw their college careers end Sunday night at the Women's College World Series with a 3-1 loss to Tennessee at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium.
It was OSU's fourth consecutive trip to the WCWS, something the program had never accomplished. Legendary coach Sandy Fischer led three straight teams to the AIAW Tournament or WCWS from 1980-82.
A couple weeks ago, Factor was asked what it meant to be part of such a program-changing run of success, and the Yukon native stuck to her humble nature.
“They were winning already when we were in high school, so it was on the rise already,” she said. “We just happened to step in at a good time. I'm just grateful to be a part of it.”
She's not wrong. Gajewski took over a program that had won 21 games the year before, and his first three teams won 32, 38 and 39 games. But those Cowgirl teams never made it out of a regional.
The next four full seasons, with Factor, Naomi and Tuck as anchors, they won at least 45 games every year, and never ended short of the WCWS. Including the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, they won 207 games — usually with at least two, and often with all three of them in the lineup.
“I'm just glad these guys got to experience this again,” Gajewski said of the WCWS following Sunday's elimination. “One day when we hoist the trophy, we'll be able to look back at all of them, and they'll be a major part of that.”
For this team it wasn't just about the three fifth-year Cowgirls. Prior to the season, Becker came in from Purdue where she'd never made the postseason and got to experience softball's brightest lights. Wynne transferred from Kansas and calls her two years at OSU a transformative point in her life.
“Stillwater has been life-changing,” she said as tears trickled down her cheeks on Sunday night. “I came in here a completely different person. I'm leaving the person I wanted to become. I told Coach G. the second I got here, I was Morgyn the softball player when I got here. That's all I was when I was at my previous institution.
“I came here, and I turned into a woman who's ready for her career. They just, they mean the world to me. It's really hard for me to explain. I'm very grateful.”
While Factor and Tuck, a Stillwater native, were locals, Naomi came in as a highly touted recruit from Lafayette, Louisiana, and quickly settled in. She started all but three games in her five seasons, tying the Cowgirl home run record at 47 and setting the mark for runs scored at 220.
“It became my home,” Naomi said. “The first second I stepped into Stillwater, everybody was open arms. I was 9 1⁄
2 hours away, 18 years old. I just felt really comfortable, especially with Coach G, having a coach like him. Just being able to lean on anybody within our facility.
“My time has been great there. I made so many memories, and I'll always have that to hold on to.”
While those five players have reached the end of the road as Cowgirls, they helped lay a foundation that will long outlast their days on the dirt.
“They've raised the bar again,” Gajewski said. “We fell short, and that part hurts. That part is the toughest part, but like I told them, if you just keep kicking shins, they'll eventually break.
“That's what we're going to do. We're just going to keep kicking the shins of our opponents, and we'll eventually break this door down, and we'll look back to teams like this.
“I couldn't be more proud of these kids and what they've done.”