Forget about the third-place finish in the Pac-10, the 17 losses, the fact they played without their legendary coach all season.
All the frustrations washed away Saturday afternoon. The Arizona Wildcats are back in the Women's College World Series.
Behind four home runs and Taryne Mowatt's 100th career victory, the two-time defending champions clinched a trip to their fourth straight WCWS by beating Oklahoma 5-2 in the super regional's final game at Hillenbrand Stadium. Seventh-seeded Arizona bounced back after dropping the second game of the best-of-three series 2-0 Saturday morning.
The Wildcats (41-17) will play the winner of the Georgia-UCLA super regional, which concludes today, in their WCWS opener.
"It never gets old, and it's always exciting when we make it," said Mowatt, who accepted the game ball from interim head coach Larry Ray.
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Mowatt and her teammates, in turn, helped relieve Ray of a four-year burden. In 2004, Oklahoma and Louisiana-Lafayette eliminated top-seeded Arizona in the regionals when Ray was the interim head coach while Mike Candrea was leading the Olympic team.
"It's awesome," said an emotional Ray. "I'm happy for the kids, for the fans and for the city of Tucson. I didn't want to not be able bring it back again. That was huge."
"Four years of looking out there, and we got one. We'll get the big one."
Mowatt (29-13) said she was thinking about earning the victory for Ray while she pitched. She struck out six, walked two and allowed eight hits.
"It was a big relief to get this for Coach Ray," she said.
Ray gave the team a simple message after it dropped the first game — he did not want the super regional championship to be their last game.
The Wildcats responded with back-to-back, two-out home runs by Jenae Leles and Sam Banister in the first inning for a 2-0 lead. Leles' homer flew 245 feet and hit the roof of a 40-foot-tall building beyond right field.
"That's only the second ball I've ever seen hit on that building," Ray said. "That was a monster."
With a home run in the fourth, Oklahoma trimmed the deficit to 2-1. Arizona took a 3-1 lead in the sixth when Callista Balko snapped out of a 0-for-6 slump with a solo homer. The Sooners cut the lead back to one on a homer in the sixth.
"The longest game I think I've ever gone through," Ray said. "I kinda felt like this is an opportunity to bust it open that first inning, and then it became a seesaw."
Leles eased the tension with a two-run blast off the center field backdrop, her third home run of the series, in the seventh. Her team-high 17th homer left Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso second-guessing whether the Sooners should have pitched to the junior, who finished the series 5 for 10 with five RBIs.
"Our game plan in the last inning was to really throw around Leles, and we left a pitch up, and that's why (pitcher) Lauren (Eckermann) is hurting right now," Gasso said.
Lefty D.J. Mathis struck out seven to shut out Arizona in the early game, but Eckermann replaced her in the final game's first inning after Mathis allowed the two home runs and a walk.
"Against an experienced team like Arizona, you can't miss those opportunities, and we left a few too many opportunities out there," Gasso said.
Women's College World Series
• When: Thursday through June 4
• Where: Oklahoma City
• Already in: Arizona, Arizona State, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana-Lafayette. Three other teams will be determined today.
