It took until the sixth inning for the fireworks to begin, but when they started it became a full go with No. 6 Arizona eventually taking the first game of the Women's College World Series 3-1 in extra innings over No. 3 Washington.

Thursday's WCWS opened with a battle between two of the best pitchers in the Pac-12 as Arizona's Taylor McQuillin and Washington's Taran Alvelo went toe to toe in the circle. The duo combined for 14 strikeouts before the first run came across the board.

UA junior shortstop Jessie Harper hit her 29th home run of the season as she went opposite field in the top of the sixth inning to break the 0-0 tie. UW's Sami Reynolds quickly answered with a leadoff home run to center field as both pitchers paid for their first true mistakes of the game.

It was in the top of the eighth that Arizona made its statement, however, with catcher Dejah Mulipola – UA's other prolific home run hitter – smashing her 23rd homer of the season to give the Wildcats a 3-1 lead and eventually the win.

The inning was set up in the bottom of the seventh when Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza made an impressive running catch in center field that save a run from scoring and UW being able to walk off with the win.

"I just drop, step and go," Palomino-Cardoza said on the broadcast after the game. "I try to read the ball as well as I can. For me today, I know that I didn't do was well offensively so to make a play like that defensively and to do that on the field for my team is pretty special."

Arizona's extra-innings win against the Huskies comes after the Wildcats struggled against their Pac-12 Conference foe during the regular season. In a series that has proven to be a turning point for UA this season the 'Cats dropped all three games against UW late in the regular season.

Alvelo had UA's number for a lot of the series at Rita Hillenbrand Stadium earlier this month, so being able to bounce back this time around certainly sent a message about Mike Candrea's squad.

"We weren't able to handle the big moment then," Candrea told reporters in OKC about his team's response Thursday against the Huskies. "So it's kind of nice to see that work pay off for them."

While the home runs will get the attention, UA received a boost in the circle from McQuillin who was making her WCWS debut. The senior from California finished the game with seven strikeouts while giving up just one run on six hits in her eight innings of work. On the other side, Alvelo finished with a career-high 11 strikeouts, but that wasn't enough to make up for her pair of mistakes to Harper and Mulipola.

"This game kind of took me back to the 90s," Candrea said. "... That's what softball used to look like. You would compete, compete, compete. It was a pitchers duel and all the sudden someone found a way to score a run. I thought it was quite ironic today that Harper's home run went out and then they came back and tied it up.

"Both pitchers were phenomenal and I mean it was just a really good fastpitch softball game today."

Now the Wildcats will play Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. MST against the winner of the game between No. 2 UCLA and No. 7 Minnesota. UA won its series against the Bruins to end the regular season and also beat Minnesota at home back in early March.