Texas Longhorns softball star Hannah Wells is definitely a little superstitious.
So much so that Wells kept “a cute and weird superstition” of eating a ladybug every time she saw one since she was a child, ESPN’s Holly Rowe first reported on the broadcast of their 5-2 win over Tennessee in the Women’s College World Series on Monday.
“I have some sources in the Texas dugout who have given me an incredible story on Hannah Wells,” Rowe revealed during the broadcast. “She has a superstition dating back to childhood that if she sees a ladybug, she eats it for good luck. Swallows it whole.
“And so I was told that at the SEC tournament in Kentucky, she had a nice home run and she had ingested a ladybug before that. So this is a superstition. I have this on two different sources in that Texas dugout.”
In case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind, Wells herself confirmed it after the game in a video posted by the NCAA’s official softball account on X.
“There was no ladybugs today, but yeah, I’ve done that since I was a little girl,” the freshman said.
No ladybugs were required for Wells on Monday, as Wells had two hits and drove in two runs when she hit a single off the center field wall in game one. In the second game, she recorded another two hits for the Longhorns.
The Longhorns swept the semifinal doubleheader against the Volunteers to come out of the losers’ bracket to reach the championship series.
Wells has had a good freshman season for Texas, with a .296 batting average and 15 home runs in 142 at-bats. On the mound, she is 6-3 on the season with 39 strikeouts.
Texas advanced to its third-straight Women’s College World Series Championship Series and will now face the winner of Alabama and Texas Tech.
