OKLAHOMA CITY » No late-inning magic for Hawaii this time.

After UCLA's Megan Langenfeld finally extinguished any Rainbow Wahine hopes of yet another rally in the Bruins' 5-2 win last night, the Rainbow Wahine find themselves in survival mode at the Women's College World Series.

But then again, the Wahine have some experience in a win-or-go-home scenario.

It was a week ago that they lost the opening game of the super regional at Alabama, then rebounded with two stunning wins to reach the WCWS.

This time, they'll put the season on the line against either Arizona or Washington in an elimination game today at 3:30 p.m. Hawaii time.

“;They'll bounce back,”; UH head coach Bob Coolen said. “;They'll come out tomorrow night and put this behind them. We've played Arizona before, we've played Washington before. We know what they're all about, they know what we're all about.”;

Arizona and Washington meet in an elimination game at 8:30 a.m. today, with the winner returning to ASA Hall of Fame Stadium later tonight.

The Wahine (50-15) lost to Arizona 8-3 on Feb. 27 in the Cathedral City Classic and dropped two games to Washington—led by two-time national player of the year Danielle Lawrie—in the Bank of Hawaii Invitational in March.

UCLA (47-11), meanwhile, moved within a win of reaching the best-of-three championship series thanks to three home runs and Langenfeld's complete-game performance.

The last time Langenfeld pitched against Hawaii in the postseason, she took the loss in UH's 3-1 victory in eight innings in the Los Angeles regional as a freshman in 2007.

This time, she relied heavily on her screwball to limit UH to six hits, the only damage coming on Alex Aguirre's two-run homer in the fourth inning that capped a 17-pitch at-bat.

Langenfeld struck out six, induced seven groundball outs and got four pop-ups.

“;We wanted to keep the ball low and force some groundballs and luckily that happened more often than not,”; Langenfeld said. “;It was a matter of sticking with that game plan and not worrying if something did get hit out.”;

UH sophomore Stephanie Ricketts got the start for the second straight day, but was lifted early after opening the second inning with a four-pitch walk and giving up a home run to Samantha Camuso. A single later, Coolen called freshman Kaia Parnaby to the circle.

Parnaby surrendered an RBI single to GiOnna DiSalvatore to push the UCLA lead to 3-0 in the second. Julie Burney and Andrea Harrison added solo homers in the fourth and fifth innings for the Bruins, who also hit three homers in a 16-3 blowout of Florida on Thursday.

“;I told Kaia we were going to be real quick with a pitching change just to mix it up,”; Coolen said. “;UCLA has a lot of lefties. I felt that with Stephanie on the mound first and Kaia coming in with her screwball she would be effective if she kept the screwball off the plate. And a couple of times she got it on the plate and those were the two runs she gave up.”;

The Wahine trailed 4-0 in the fourth when Aguirre electrified the capacity crowd in her epic at-bat in which she fouled off 14 straight pitches before finally slamming her second homer of the WCWS to bring UH back to within two runs.

“;It's one of those things where I knew she was coming inside every single pitch so I just focused on seeing the ball in front and getting my hands around on it,”; Aguirre said.

Kanani Pu'u-Warren and Amanda Tauali'i followed with singles, but Langenfeld got Katie Grimes to pop up to end the threat.

Langenfeld then retired nine of the next 11 hitters, preventing any 11th-hour drama for the Wahine, who had won their last two games on seventh-inning homers.

“;We lost, so be it. We've still got another game tomorrow,”; Parnaby said. “;We're going to come back stronger, we come back harder. We fight as a team.”;