Stanford Cardinal softball pitcher NiJaree Canady has formally entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, per On3’s Pete Nakos. This comes after it was previously reported that she was going to make the decision.
Canady was the 2024 USA Softball Player of the Year and led Stanford to the Women’s College World Series. Over the course of the season, she led the country with a 0.73 ERA and 337 strikeouts. She did that on 41 appearances and 29 starts while pitching 230.2 total innings. She had nine shutouts and 29 complete games while opponents only hit .147 against her for the entire season.
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A native of Topeka, Kansas, NiJaree Canady was a two-time Kansas Softball Gatorade Player of the Year. That was in 2021 and 2022. Meanwhile, Extra Innings Softball ranked her as the No. 11 overall recruit in her class. On top of all of that, she also led her high school to back-to-back state championships.
While at Stanford, Canady made her impact felt immediately, becoming the D1Softball Freshman of the Year and the Softball America NCAA Freshman of the Year. She built on that performance to become one of the best players in all of college softball for her sophomore season.
Now, as she enters the Transfer Portal, NiJaree Canady has two years of college eligibility remaining.
2024 was the second straight season making it to the Women’s College World Series for Stanford. There, the Cardinal won games against Oklahoma State and UCLA. However, two losses where Stanford was unable to score against Texas cost the Cardinal in the end. In that run, NiJaree Canady was the dominant force for Stanford. She pitched a total of 26 innings in those four Women’s College World Series games, allowing only five earned runs.
Canady is transferring from Stanford at a time of major change for the program, as the Cardinal are moving to the ACC for next season. Her transfer is also going to force Stanford into a rebuilding situation as they make that transition to a new conference. Still, Stanford is coming off one of the best seasons in program history, going 50-17 overall and 17-7 in conference play.
The NCAA Softball Transfer Portal window opened on May 17th. Softball players are given 30 days from that point to officially enter their names into the portal, meaning June 17th is the final day to enter.
The post Stanford pitcher, 2024 USA Softball Player of the Year NiJaree Canady formally enters NCAA transfer portal appeared first on On3.