What started off so well this week for Arizona ended with a late-night loss and the end of the season.

The Wildcats had to wait their turn Saturday as weather impacted the games in Oklahoma City at the Women's College World Series. By the time UA was able to take the field it was playing a hot team that scored 15 runs in its first game of the day. No. 8 Alabama knocked off No. 5 Florida 15-3 in an elimination game before taking on the sixth-ranked Wildcats with both hoping to have an opportunity to take on No. 1 Oklahoma.

Eventually a one-hit, two-run inning would be the one to do Arizona in as Alabama scored a pair of runs in the third inning and that would be the only scoring to take place for either team in a 2-0 loss for UA.

The Wildcats (48-14) had their opportunities to score runs all the way up until the end of the game with the tying run at the plate a couple times in the bottom of the seventh inning, but the bats were simply too quiet Saturday night to help UA survive one more day.

"When you get here, it's competition," Arizona head coach Mike Candrea said. "It's a game of inches. We could be sitting here talking about Hanah [Bowen] getting the base hit into right field and driving in two runs. That's kind of the way the ball bounces sometimes.

"Rylee Pierce hits the ball on the nose, stays in the ballpark. We've been on both sides of the coin. I have no regrets. I love this team. I think this team has done everything I've asked them to do. They have committed to the journey, committed to the process each and every day. They've become a family.

"They've taken care of each other. They understand what it takes to be a team. To be honest with you, this was probably one of the most fun years that I've had coaching softball."

While the end of the season was a disappointing one for the Wildcats, the team chose to look at the positives of the experience and what it will mean moving forward with the program rather the finality of an impressive run to the WCWS for the first time in nearly a decade.

"I think every team starts the fall wanting to get here," junior catcher Dejah Mulipola told reporters in OKC after Saturday's loss. "That's kind of the goal of the season, to get to the last game. Unfortunately we weren't able to do that. But going into my senior year, we know what it takes, the junior class knows what it takes to get here.

"All we can do is lead the youngins and get back here and win it next year."

When you get into this part of the season the little things matter and for Arizona there were just a couple bad breaks that ultimately mattered most in its two losses in Oklahoma City. Friday against UCLA there was a seventh inning that featured some uncharacteristic miscues in the field and Saturday it was just one inning that mattered in the loss to Alabama.

Candrea was able to take some solace in that at the end of hist team's run to the WCWS. It's easier to think about what he would do differently now, but the experience his players were able to get this week is something that simply cannot be replicated.

"This game is so easy after it's over," he said. "Hindsight is wonderful. Unfortunately we don't play the game that way. Sometimes it's what's in the moment. Like I said, sometimes the ball bounces a different way. You look at the Washington game. We got a couple key hits, and they didn't. Beat a very good team.

"Tonight, Alabama gets a key hit, we give up two hits, they had two, that's just the way softball is. Unfortunately I've been through a lot of those games. Or fortunately I've been through a lot of them. "

Now Arizona goes into the offseason knowing what it's like to get to the WCWS and lose meaning it will have that experience in its back pocket as it looks to make a return in 2020.

"Now we actually know what we are working for next year," junior pitcher Alyssa Denham said. "We've experienced it. Now I think that it's going to light a fire under us to want to get back here next year."

Alabama will not take on Oklahoma in one semifinal matchup while Pac-12 foes UCLA and Washington will square off Sunday with the opportunity to play a championship on the line.