Out of the shadows and into the WCWS spotlight, it's Oklahoma vs. Auburn for national title

— -- OKLAHOMA CITY -- A visual communications major in search of a project, Oklahoma senior right fielder Erin Miller took on the responsibility this season of designing the softball team poster. Start to finish, concept to print, she sought her muse.

What emerged was a statement of identity for a senior class that while blessed to play with some of the greatest individual talents in softball history, past Sooners like Lauren Chamberlain, Shelby Pendley and Keilani Ricketts, now wanted its own turn.

The theme: Into The Spotlight.

"We were always kind of in the shadows, if you will, behind some pretty big names," Miller said. "So this year I think it really hit home that our senior class was going to step into the leadership role, step into the spotlight. So I tried to hone in on that theme in the poster. You can see the seniors up in the forefront. I also decided to include the whole team in the poster, which is something I don't know that we've ever done as a program.

"I included the whole team because if you've been watching us the entire year, you know that it's an entire team effort. I think our freshman class is imperative for our success this year."

Consider the spotlight successfully located and occupied.

That team will play for a national championship beginning Monday, with No. 3 Oklahoma facing No. 4 Auburn in a best-of-three series at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium. And as it turns out, the theme on which Miller based her work in the preseason sums up both sides of the year's final series.

Now it's into the spotlight for an Oklahoma roster of rising stars and previously overlooked standouts, and out of the shadows for an Auburn program so long an afterthought in a conference of giants.

It is an Oklahoma team that, in a tournament promoted as Florida's march to a third consecutive national title and further confirmation of SEC supremacy, could join Arizona and UCLA as the only schools with more than two titles.

It is an Auburn team that could win its first championship in just its second World Series appearance.

Both the Sooners and Tigers sought that spotlight ahead of schedule. In Auburn's case, as described in the aftermath of their semifinal win against Florida State, a program that was an afterthought four years ago and a World Series rookie one year ago isn't waiting its turn. That is rare in college softball. It isn't rare for Auburn coach Clint Myers, who engineered the same sort of rapid ascent en route to two national titles at Arizona State.

Oklahoma has ample tradition and institutional memory when it comes to success in this setting, but the pitcher responsible for every inning thrown by Oklahoma in the postseason, Paige Parker, is just a sophomore. The hitters penciled into second, third, fourth and fifth behind Miller in the batting order are freshmen. Three more regular starters are in just their second seasons.

Oklahoma began the season ranked No. 8, hardly a slight but lower than it had been almost since the day Ricketts arrived in 2010 and a new era of dominance dawned in Norman. Within three weekends, following losses to Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon State and Washington, the Sooners had slipped into the middle teens in the polls.

Parker was not entirely healthy and the pieces, both new and old, were not aligned quite right, so it looked like a rebuilding season.

They have lost just three times since and enter the series against Auburn with 30 wins in a row.

"The chemistry on this team is something that I have not seen in a long time," Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said. "This group is so enjoyable to be around every day. At practice, on the field, in battle, it's just a joy to be around them. They truly appreciate and respect each other. And at practice every day, I don't have to bark at them because they work. So it's just all the payoff.

"If you asked me this in February when we had lost four games in the first two weekends, or three weekends, I wouldn't expect this. But perseverance got us here."

Perseverance, sure, but also precociousness.

For all the understandable focus on Oklahoma freshman Sydney Romero, younger sister of USA Softball Player of the Year Sierra Romero, the sibling currently shaping this World Series is classmate Shay Knighten. Younger sister of Nebraska star MJ Knighten, Shay finished off Oklahoma's run production in its 7-3 semifinal win against LSU with a home run. Her second home run this World Series was not quite as dramatic as the first, a walk-off three-run shot to beat Alabama, but the velocity at which it cleared the outfield fence symbolized the speed of her ascent as star-in-waiting.

In her first three games in Oklahoma City in 2012, the World Series that helped make her perhaps the biggest star of the past decade, Chamberlain hit one home run and drove in three runs. Knighten's haul, by contrast, is two home runs and seven RBIs thus far.

"It's one of the things that I think all of us have been dreaming about since we were little," Knighten said of the championship series that awaits. "For it to be for, like, our freshman year, it's just unreal. I don't think it will really become real until I set foot on that field."

The attention showered on Romero, Parker and Knighten, among other young players, could have potentially produced dysfunction. This was, after all, the senior class that thought the spotlight would finally be its own. But Miller wanted to put all the faces in the poster for a reason. The Sooners wouldn't be where they are without Miller's leadoff power and speed. Fellow senior Kady Self produces runs in the bottom half of the order. And somehow, this week may not end without senior Kelsey Stevens, who pitched the Sooners to a World Series in 2014, playing some kind of role.

These aren't individuals who need all of the applause and all of the credit. Miller's design acknowledged as much.

Every World Series has its tactical conundrums. How will Auburn's lineup full of left-handed production cope with a southpaw like Parker? How will Parker hold up to a substantial postseason workload? In a World Series almost guaranteed to produce the most total errors in more than 20 years, will Auburn's normally steady defense hold its own behind a pitching staff that doesn't strike people out? Speaking of that staff, can Auburn have the right arms in the circle at the right time?

But for teams that have already survived close calls, the theme of the championship series seems easy enough to deduce.

The two-time defending champion is out. The player of the year is out. The Pac-12 is out.

The season comes down to which group new to the spotlight fares better in it.