Cat Osterman was on her game, and Yukiko Ueno wasn’t.

That’s what Monday night’s World Cup of Softball championship game came down to.

Two of the world’s best pitchers went at it in a rematch of last year’s final, but the United States came away with its first World Cup trophy thanks to a 5-2 victory over the defending champs at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium.

Osterman went the distance, giving up two runs, one earned, on two hits while striking out 11.

“We worked our game plan and we were able to do everything correctly in order to win,” Osterman said. “I wasn’t going to allow these guys to hang around. The runs they got they kind of scratched together late in the game.”

The United States got home runs from Stacey Nuveman, Andrea Duran and Lovieanne Jung and an RBI single from Jessica Mendoza.

For the tournament, Team USA hit .453, while American pitchers allowed opponents to hit just .148 while posting a 0.41 earned run average.

The strong performance proved the United States is again atop the international softball world, a title that was in doubt after the U.S. team fell to Canada and then Japan in the championship game of last year’s World Cup.

“We worked hard this year,” Jung said. “Last year, we just kind of came together and went out and played. We learned from that. We practiced harder and worked more together leading up to this.”

The sixth-largest crowd in ASA Hall of Fame Stadium history turned out to watch the Americans win, the 6,234 fans having to find standing-room-only space wherever they could.

“For a lot of us, and I know I’ve said it a lot, but we wanted to come in and play well for this crowd,” Mendoza said. “We wanted to come in and prove ourselves. We were a little better prepared this time around and more mentally prepared for (Ueno).”

Ueno ran into trouble in the first inning, when two errors allowed Mendoza to come up with two runners on. She singled in Caitlin Lowe, and Natasha Watley then scored on a passed ball. In the fourth inning, Nuveman and Jung took the Japanese ace over the center field wall for solo home runs.

Ueno was pulled before the start of the fifth inning. Her replacement, Yuko Endo, allowed Duran to blast a shot over the left field fence in the sixth inning to complete the United States’ scoring.

“Last year, it had been two years since we saw (Ueno), and she had gotten bigger and stronger,” Mendoza said. “This time we were ready for her.”

The Americans outscored opponents 59-3 in six games, and Mendoza was the catalyst, hitting .611 for the tourney with seven runs scored, 11 hits, three home runs and 16 RBIs.

Jung led the team with a .615 batting average and went deep twice.

Osterman and Tennessee pitcher Monica Abbott both finished 2-0 for the Americans.

Next up for Team USA is a trip to Beijing, site of the 2008 Olympics, for the 2006 World Championships, Aug. 27 through Sept. 5.

“The World Championships are a completely different thing,” Jung said. “Both (the World Cup) and the World Championships are important, but over there, you don’t know what you’re going to eat every day, you don’t know the country. You don’t have the fans that we were able to have here. It’s a different atmosphere.”

Next year’s World Cup is back at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium July 12 through July 16.

Jeff Johncox writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript.