UA center fielder Caitlin Lowe dives for a ball but catches it on a hop Sunday in the Wildcats' second game against Washington. The UA won twice to eliminate the Huskies.

photos by james s. wood / arizona daily star

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OKLAHOMA CITY — Playing with a desperate bent, the Arizona softball team won two games Sunday to fight its way from the loser's bracket into the Women's College World Series final.

Wildcats pitcher Taryne Mowatt mastered Washington 2-0 in the afternoon game at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium to earn an early-evening rematch with the Huskies. In the second game, the UA scored two runs in the first inning and posted eight in the game — more than it had scored in its first four combined — to win 8-1.

In both games, the Wildcats played with attitude.

"At this stage of the game, it's very natural to get that way," UA coach Mike Candrea said. "When you're playing for survival, I think there's some instinct that gets out.

"It's a good thing. We're not a very emotional team. Sometimes I think we're too nice."

The UA now will face Tennessee — the team that handed the Wildcats their only loss of the tournament — in the best-of-three series beginning at 5 tonight.

The Wildcats will face Monica Abbott, who has 49 strikeouts and has not allowed a run in 21 innings of the tournament. Abbott, the NCAA's career and single-season strikeout leader, also owns NCAA marks for career wins (188) and shutouts (111).

The Wildcats will need all of the edge they showed Sunday to defeat Abbott, who gave up six hits and fanned 16 against the UA in Tennessee's 1-0 win Friday.

Nothing exemplified the Wildcats' must-win approach Sunday better than the third inning of the first game.

Washington's Ashley Charters was caught stealing at second. When she slid into UA shortstop Kristie Fox, her cleat caught in Fox's stirrup — and Fox appeared to push her to the ground.

"I apologized. I wasn't going after her to hurt her," Fox said.

But Fox knew what was coming. When she ran into the dugout at the end of the half-inning, Fox told teammates Caitlin Lowe and Chelsie Mesa that they needed to get on base — "because I'm about to wear it," she said.

Fox was hit in the knee by the first pitch from Danielle Lawrie. Fox didn't retaliate, but ran to first.

It was similar to Saturday night's game, when Lowe collided with DePaul pitcher Tracie Adix at home plate. Adix barked at Lowe for the rough treatment.

"I personally never would mess with Kristie Fox," Mowatt said. "On this team, if you mess with one person, you pretty much have all of us there to back it up.

"I definitely think that as a team we perform better with our backs against the wall."

Mowatt was magnificent again. Her streak of 32 1/2 WCWS innings without an earned run expired in the fourth inning of the second game, but she fanned nine and gave up only four hits.

She has allowed 14 hits in the tournament — all singles.

In the second game, the UA scored two in the first on a Jenae Leles double. The Wildcats added another in the third when Fox scored on a Sam Banister single. Banister was the hero of the early game, doubling in the team's only two runs in the sixth.

The Wildcats poured it on with four more in the sixth inning of the second game, two on a Mesa double.

No one seemed happier about the win than Mesa, whose error at second base Friday handed Tennessee the only run of the game.

"I took it pretty hard," she said. "Everyone tried to tell me, 'No Chelsie, it's not your fault.' But when something like that happens, it's so hard to look at it any other way."

Mesa talked to family and friends early Saturday, getting to bed around 4 a.m. At the ballpark, she snapped out of it.

In the second game Sunday, she went 3 for 4 with two RBIs.

And that might have showed more guts than any hard slide or diving catch.

"I owe my team something," she said. "We had to work our way back."