Texas and its band of former Ducks ended Oregon’s season.

Whether the pairing was orchestrated for dramatic purposes or the result of bracketing principles was a matter of perspective, but the teams supplied over five hours of high tension softball.

Eugene native and former Duck Lauren Burke hit a leadoff single in the fourth inning and came in to score on a pinch hit RBI single by Jordyn Whitaker as the No. 12 seed Longhorns held on to top the Ducks, 1-0 at McCombs Field in a dramatic NCAA regional final that lasted into the wee hours Monday in Austin.

“We had some tough jams that we got out of, we just fell a little short,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “I’m so proud of this team to watch them transform through the beginning of the year to now. I can’t say enough. My heart hurts because they were right there and I want them to get what they want and we fell short. I can’t tell you how unbelievably proud I am of them and the fight and the will and how hard they want to play for each other and play for Oregon.”

Oregon (40-16), which forced the winner-take-all finale after a 3-2 win in eight innings on a walk-off RBI single by Terra McGowan that scored Haley Cruse, mounted a late rally but couldn’t plate the tying run.

Rachel Cid led off the top of the seventh with a double off the top of the wall in right center and Hanna Delgado (2 for 3) singled to put runners on the corners. But Molly Jacobsen struck out Alyssa Brito, got Ariel Carlson to ground out to third on a 2-0 pitch and closed it out by getting Maddie Hopper to ground out to third as well.

Lombardi said not sending Cid on contact on the one-out grounder near the third-base line was a difficult “read play” because Texas third baseman Camille Corona was already playing up defensively.

Jacobsen allowed just five hits and a walk in a complete game shutout for the Longhorns (41-12), who advance to play a super regional at No. 5 seed Oklahoma State next weekend.

“(Jacobsen) was pretty stoic out there today,” Texas coach Mike White said. “She just kept dialing it up out there, hit the corners, using her off-speed. I thought the zone wasn’t conducive to her pitching, it was more of a high umpire in the zone and she battled around that a little bit, was able to use her off-speed and get some outs. … I didn’t think she’d be fazed by (the late jam). She was going to throw and pitch. Sometimes you feel as a coach it’s their game to lose and you got to trust in them. I think they feel that sometimes, they feel that trust that you have.”

Samaria Diaz (5-3) allowed the game’s only run on four hits and struck out six over 3 2/3 innings, Makenna Kliethermes allowed two hits in 1 1/3 scoreless innings and Brooke Yanez, who pitched all of Sunday’s first game for Oregon, threw a perfect sixth.

The reunion of White, Burke, Shannon Rhodes and Mary Iakopo against their former team and UO’s Cruse and Shaye Bowden against their former coach brought out the best from them. Each player had at least one hit between Sunday’s two games, and one on each side scored the winning runs in each contest.

White said there was no need for the postseason meeting to provide closure to the matter, which stems from his departure from Oregon to Texas nearly three years ago.

“I never looked at it as an open wound either,” White said. “I have no animosity towards Oregon or the Oregon team. I still follow them and I have a lot of recruits that are there. The kids and families are great. You wish it wouldn’t have to happen this way — you always wish it would happen during the season so it could have got out of the way. It’s almost like somebody wanted to match this up.

“I didn’t think we played it up too big and I don’t think the Oregon players played it up too big. It was just a game where each team wanted to go on to the next step and that’s what we saw. We saw a knockout, drag-out, really tight ballgame.”