Likely destinations fell off the board until the final regional was announced: the No. 16 seed Oregon Ducks will host Weber State, Stanford and Binghamton in its four-team pod to start the national tournament.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking,” WSU senior Olivia Birkinshaw said. “A lot of us thought we were going to the University of Arizona … but a lot of us were really excited to end up in Oregon.”

Weber State (28-30) and Oregon (47-7) will face off at 5:30 p.m. MDT Friday on ESPN+. The Ducks beat the Wildcats 9-1 in February at a tournament hosted by Arizona State and won the Big Ten regular-season championship with a 19-3 conference record.

“I think it’s an advantage since we have faced them and we’ve seen some of their pitching, so it’s exciting to get a second chance to go at ’em,” Birkinshaw said.

Greg Merrill, for WSU Athletics

Stanford (40-11) takes on Binghamton (36-12) in the first matchup Friday, set for 3 p.m. MDT on ESPN+.

Regionals are double-elimination, so play continues Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18, until one team is left standing. The winner of Oregon’s regional advances to a super regional likely hosted by No. 1 Texas A&M.

Weber State is the only team from Utah in the tournament. WSU clinched that opportunity by beating Big Sky regular-season champ Idaho State twice in the conference tournament, capped with a 10-4 victory Saturday evening in Greeley, Colorado.

Birkinshaw was one of the heroes of that effort, crushing a three-run homer late to all but put away the tournament title.

“It’s been super surreal, super exciting. My adrenaline has been through the roof,” she said. “Even waking up today, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we won the championship yesterday.”

Birkinshaw and the Wildcats got head coach Kristin Delahoussaye, a former seven-year assistant at WSU, to the NCAA Tournament in her first season at the helm.

“It’s a huge honor being able to play for Coach House … for my final year,” Birkinshaw said. “Then to have such an amazing season and win the tournament under her, it’s huge starting her career that way. Just being able to be part of the start, I’m excited to see how far she takes this program from here.”

Delahoussaye said one of the biggest challenges her team overcame that led to so many big moments across her lineup was belief — not in the team, but each player for themselves.

“Our team is really good at believing in each other,” the coach said. “There’s nobody they believe in more than their friend, but sometimes … it was really hard to believe in ourselves. So they had to learn to actually trust in themselves, be good at what they’re good at, and that was a big growing moment for us.”

The Wildcats last played in the NCAA Tournament in 2022, taking losses to Texas and Lehigh. Weber State is the only team in Big Sky softball history to win a game at an NCAA Regional, a 7-3 victory over Cal State Fullerton in a 2019 regional at UCLA.

This is Weber State’s fifth trip to the NCAA Tournament since the Big Sky entered NCAA-sanctioned play in 2010. Previous bids to the national tournament came in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022.

REVISITING THE FINAL

Birkinshaw credited Delahoussaye’s leadership as part of why Weber State shook off a 3-2 loss in Saturday’s first game to rebound for a convincing, 10-4 victory.

“We had already gone through the hardships, we knew how to turn it around, but Coach House pulled us all aside and had us air out anything we were feeling, whether they were nerves, if we were worried, we kind of all got our demons out and then went out there with the confidence to take home the win,” Birkinshaw said.

Idaho State’s lineup full of hitters seemed to threaten every lead WSU had in the second game, so Birkinshaw’s towering big fly felt extra important after ISU intentionally walked her in her previous at-bat.

“I started mentally preparing on deck … if they pitch to me, just stay within myself, not try to do too much,” she said. “Anything in the strike zone I was going to put a good swing on it and luckily I got a pretty good first pitch to hit. It was super exciting, a really cool moment for sure.”

Her’s and Emma Bingham’s consecutive homers put WSU up 10-4, but they wouldn’t end up needing the extra runs. Jayci Finch, like Brooke Merrill and Cali McCraw in other moments, made sure things were fine inside the circle.

“Cali has gotten so much better in the last part of the season and we’ve spent most of the year making sure she was healthy, all the pitchers were healthy and we weren’t overusing any one pitcher,” Delahoussaye said. “Jayci’s closed a lot of games for us and that’s a situation where Jayci brings the fire all the time. Having her throw well was not a surprise, but putting her in that situation and watching her thrive when a championship was on the line was an awesome thing to be a part of.

“And Brooke did a really good job in that first inning giving Cali a little bit of a break before we rolled into her again.”