Heading into the final regular-season series of the year, the Oregon State softball team was on the cusp of a lost season.
It had all started so well. The Beavers began the year 31-9 — climbing to No. 22 in the nation — but when they traveled to play Utah on May 12, it seemed like ancient history. Having lost 10 games in a row, the Women’s College World Series wasn’t worth a passing thought. The Beavers just wanted to win a single game.
For senior Mariah Mazon, one of the best players in program history, it’s easy to laugh about now. The Beavers’ run over the past two weeks in the NCAA tournament has granted a new perspective for that tough stretch of games.
“Those losses were all hard-fought losses — seven of them were by one run,” Mazon said Saturday after completing a super regional sweep of Stanford to punch a WCWS berth.
It seemed like they kept finding new ways to lose. They blew a 4-1 lead in the seventh inning against UCLA. They lost to Washington on a walk-off sac fly. They lost on a game-ending throwing error to Oregon. Tying and go-ahead runs came to the plate, never to cross home.
“We knew that from those games that we could come back and beat anybody. We just needed one more thing to get us on top,” Mazon said. “So, I think [the losing streak] was more of a push for us — knowing that we could stay in games with UCLA and Washington and Oregon.”
And the Beavers ended up beating the Utes two out of three times that trip.
The reality is no conference in the country features the type of high-level parity seen in the Pac-12. Since conference play began in mid-March, the Beavers went through the gantlet and came out prepared to make a postseason run. Seven of the conference’s nine softball-playing schools reached the NCAA tournament; five reached a super regional and three — UCLA and Arizona, along with Oregon State — are still alive. In an incredible display of the conference’s depth, Arizona finished Pac-12play in last place.
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Source : espn
