What to know about 16-seed Oregon's WCWS matchup with the reigning champion Oklahoma Sooners

Some how, some way, the No. 16 Oregon Ducks continue to will themselves to victory. After their third walk-off win of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night — and second to stave off elimination — head coach Melyssa Lombardi's Ducks are still dancing at the Women's College World Series, but will now have to face their toughest test yet.

Oregon has yet to lose back-to-back games this season and is 4-0 in elimination games in the tournament. But standing in their way is the seemingly insurmountable task of climbing the mountain that is the No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners, in the ballpark where they have won the last four national titles.

Former Oregon head coach Mike White was finally able to overcome the Sooners on Saturday, leading his No. 6 Texas Longhorns to a 4-2 victory over the team that beat them in the WCWS final in two of the last three years. But despite the loss, this Oklahoma team will be the most dangerous Oregon has faced this season.

Although the conference realignment that sent Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 to the SEC this season was driven by football television contracts, a side effect was dropping the four-time defending national champions into the softball league in the country. Legendary coach Patty Gasso's team met their new challenge every step of the way, despite a largely overhauled roster, finishing with the best record in conference play and capturing a share of the SEC Tournament title (the championship game between Oklahoma and Texas A&M was rained out).

Last season, en route to their fourth consecutive championship, the Sooners ended Oregon's season when the Ducks were sent to the Norman Regional to open the NCAA Tournament. It was Lombardi's first opportunity to face her former mentor in Gasso, with whom she spent 24 seasons as a player, student assistant, assistant coach, and associate head coach. Ariel Carlson homered in the first inning to put the Ducks ahead, but that would be their only lead across two games, falling in a pair of tightly-fought contests as Lombardi was ultimately unable to overcome the superpower that she helped Gasso build in Norman.

The last time that the Ducks beat the Sooners was back in 2018, the final year of White's tenure, when they took down the back-to-back defending national champs 5-0 at The Jane. This season, Lombardi has reached several heights that the program hadn't seen since White's departure, including winning a conference championship, hosting and winning both regionals and super regionals, and winning a game at the WCWS.

Lombardi said last night after her team scraped by Ole Miss in 10 innings that whoever the Ducks play, they play, and that she feels good about her team, regardless of who's in the other dugout. But Oklahoma is not just any team, and will give Oregon the chance to do something special (in addition to keeping its season alive) when the two teams meet on Sunday afternoon.

After a nearly four-hour game on Friday night that followed a rain-delayed, post-midnight local time, walk-off loss on Thursday, the Ducks will surely be glad for their day of rest on Saturday before they meet the Sooners on Sunday. Nobody more so than ace Lyndsey Grein, who put everything on the line to will her team to a win against Ole Miss.

Grein started the game for the Ducks with 4 ⅔ innings of two-run ball, exiting with her team ahead by one and the tying run on third as Lombardi tried to gain the platoon advantage, bringing in Oregon's lefty Staci Chambers to face a left-handed batter in Persy Llamas — who had driven in the run off of Grein in the top of the first. But the strategy didn't pay off as Llamas singled to tie the game, and Lombardi decided to go to her pen once again before Chambers had even recorded an out.

In came Elise Sokolsky, who would get the Ducks out of the inning before conceding a pair of singles in the top of the sixth to put two on with one out. Lombardi decided to go back to Grein, a bold move as, with Oregon's two main options out of the bullpen already exhausted, she would need to lock down the final five outs after the Ducks' offense had taken the lead in the bottom of the fifth.

She picked up a big strikeout before forcing a first-pitch foul popup behind the plate to get the Ducks out of the inning. She had the chance to lock down the win in the top of the seventh, but that's when the Rebels got hot. Grein loaded the bases before a fielder's choice and a two-out single brought home three runs to tie the game.

But even after her setback, Grein knew her team needed her and locked back in. As the Ducks' offense missed opportunities to walk off the game in the bottom of the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, Grein continued to hold Ole Miss off the scoreboard as her pitch count and innings total soared to new career highs. Her 144 pitches and 9 ⅓ frames surpassed the 134 bullets she fired across eight innings in her first start last season for Virginia Tech.

After striking out her sixth and seventh batters of the game and stranding a pair in her third straight scoreless inning, ESPN's cameras caught a glimpse of Grein leading a team meeting before the bottom of the 10th, hyping up her offense as even her coach watched and listened. In that bottom of the 10th, Oregon loaded the bases before Kedre Luschar drew a walk-off free pass for the 6-5 win.

The Ducks will certainly need Grein against the Sooners, but the rest of their staff being at the top of their game will be critical after how much Friday night put on Grein's right arm. After dealing with an injury in the first weekend that held her back in the regular season, Chambers has emerged for the Ducks in the postseason with a 2.10 ERA in 10 frames since the start of the Big Ten Tournament, and will be fresh after only throwing six pitches on Friday. Sokolsky, meanwhile, only tossed 13 pitches against Ole Miss and has been the Ducks' counter to Grein in the circle all season long.

On offense, Oregon will need to stay patient and hunt for pitches that they can do damage with against the Sooners' staff. Oklahoma has relied heavily on senior Louisiana transfer Sam Landry throughout the postseason, and she has delivered by lowering her ERA from 1.94 on the year to 1.37 since the start of the SEC Tournament. But this has come with a decline in her peripherals, raising her WHIP from 1.037 to 1.297, and her walks from 2.1 per seven innings to 3.2, while her strikeouts have fallen from 6.5 to 5.1 per seven innings.

The Ducks didn't walk against UCLA's Kaitlyn Terry on Thursday, a bad sign for an offense that has often been reliant on free passes and the long ball this season to supplement its basepath chaos. But against Ole Miss, Oregon walked five times, including Kedre Luschar's walk-off to end the game. Landry has consistently been able to eat innings while keeping runs off the board for the Sooners, but has walked multiple batters in her last five appearances in a row and in 11 of her last 12, a stretch that has seen her hand out 3.8 batters per seven innings.

A win will require the Ducks' pitching staff to suppress a Sooner offense that led the SEC in homers this season, but if they can, their explosive offense will give them a fighting chance to keep their season alive on Sunday.

First pitch will come at 4 PM from Devon Park in Oklahoma City, with the game airing on ESPN2.