“Not many kids can say they got in a fight with a bear and came out on top,” says Arizona woman Carol Edington Hawkins, whose 15-year-old son survived an attack last week. In a Facebook post, Hawkins shared photos of her injured son, Brigham, the Arizona Republic reports. She tells NBC News that Brigham was watching YouTube in a cabin on her parents’ property in Alpine on Thursday evening when a black bear “walked in through the front door and swiped him across the head.” She says Parker, Brigham’s 18-year-old brother, heard Brigham’s screams and ran over from a second cabin to help.

Hawkins says the bear chased Parker—who initially thought it was a large dog—but he managed to get to the other cabin just in time. She says the bear also chased her husband, Shane, when he ran to Brigham’s cabin, but he “slammed the door in the bear’s face.” Arizona Game and Fish Department officers killed the bear, believed to be a 3-year-old male, at the scene, the Republic reports. Hawkins say the family is saddened by the bear’s death but understands that it was acting abnormally and had to be put down. “For whatever reason, there was something wrong with this bear, something was off,” she says.

Brigham, who has a rare neurological disorder, was treated for injuries including gashes to his face and arm but is expected to make a full recovery, reports the New York Post. He has been given rabies shots as a precaution. “We’re extremely blessed and feel that somebody was most definitely watching over him,” Hawkins tells 12News. “He’s very small and has lots of medical issues and there was nothing he could have done to chase off this bear or fight off this bear.” (More bear attack stories.)

It won’t just be familiar confines for Arizona as it gets to host an NCAA Baseball Tournament regional. There will also be familiar foes.

The Wildcats (36-21) earned the No. 13 overall seed and will begin play Friday against Grand Canyon (34-23), a team they’ve faced three times this season and lost to twice, including once (badly) at Hi Corbett Field. The other teams coming to Tucson are Dallas Baptist (44-13), whom the UA lost to at the Frisco Classic in March, and West Virginia (33-22), which took two of three in a series at Hi Corbett to open the 2023 season.

“It was a no brainer,” UA coach Chip Hale said of Grand Canyon, which was also sent to Tucson in 2021. “We knew that, and it makes sense. It’s good, their fans and get down here no problem.”

The 4-team regional has a double-elimination format, with Friday’s winners and losers meeting on Saturday. The regional final is set for Sunday, with a potential second game (if needed) on Monday.

The Tucson Region is paired up with the Chapel Hill Region, hosted by No. 4 seed North Carolina (42-13). If both Arizona and UNC advance to Super Regionals it would be played in Chapel Hill, but if the Wildcats win their regional and anyone other than the Tar Heels take the other the Supers would be played in Tucson.

Among those in the Chapel Hill Region is defending College World Series champion LSU, led by former UA Jay Johnson. Ex-Wildcat outfielder Mac Bingham is on the Tigers after spending four seasons with Arizona.

Arizona is 10-1 in NCAA Tournament games played at Hi Corbett, advancing to the World Series from there in 2012 and 2021. This will be the fourth consecutive season the Wildcats have played in the NCAA tourney, the longest streak since making it 14 years in a row from 1950-63.

“I haven’t played in a regional where there hasn’t been a weather delay,” said infielder Garen Caulfield, who was part of the UA teams that dealt with stormy conditions in Coral Gables, Fla., in 2022 and Fayetteville, Ark., last season. “I’m hoping that the Tucson Regional provides some good weather for us.”

Despite an RPI of 31, Arizona not only got to host but was considered by the selection committee to be better than three other seeds. No. 14 Santa Barbara had an RPI of 13, while No. 15 Oregon State (18) and No. 16 East Carolina (22) also were ranked ahead of the Wildcats.

“I’m not as surprised as most people were, because of what we’ve done and our body of work,” Hale said, noting Arizona’s Pac-12 regular-season and conference tournament titles.

Dallas Baptist, which has an RPI of 17, won the Conference USA tourney title on Sunday after finishing second in the regular season. West Virginia was fourth in the Big 12 but went 0-2 in its conference tourney, while Grand Canyon also went 0-2 in the WAC tourney but because champ Tarleton State is ineligible due its transition from Division II the Antelopes were awarded the automatic bid by virtue of winning the regular season crown by five games.

GCU took two of three from Arizona this season, with the Wildcats winning 6-4 at home on March 19 before losing 5-4 in Phoenix on April 16 and then getting run-ruled 24-8 at home on April 30. Those were all midweek contests, however, when teams tend not to pitch their weekend starters.

“This will be different,” Hale said. “We’ll face they’re supposed Friday night starter and we’ll have our our best pitcher going against them. So it will be a little bit different, but they put good at-bats together, they put the ball in play with two strikes. As we know, with our weather and our fiel there’s a lot of hits to be had in this field. So when you put the ball in play have a chance.

“They’re a good team, and we’ve always said that, that’s what we play them three times a year. They’re very tough team. We know them well, they know us well. So it’s going to be a good battle.”

Arizona is one of three Pac-12 schools to make it in the conference’s final season. Besides the Wildcats and OSU, Oregon got in as the No. 3 seed in the Santa Barbara Region, while Cal was among the first four teams out of the field.

A black bear was shot and killed by Arizona fish and game officers after it entered a home through an open door and injured a teenager in a mountain community near the New Mexico state line, wildlife officials said.

The 15-year-old boy, identified as Brigham Hawkins by his family, received wounds to his face and arm when the bear swiped at him, and he was treated at a hospital after the late Wednesday incident in Alpine, the state Game and Fish Department said.

His mother, Carol Hawkins, told CBS affiliate KPHO-TV in Phoenix that the bear attacked her son while he was alone and watching television.

“Never in our wildest dreams did we think (a bear) would come in the home,” she told the station.

Hawkins said her other son heard screams and went to help. Wildlife officials said the bear entered the home a second time before it fled.

“Not many kids can say they got in a fight with a bear and came out on top,” Hawkins said in a Facebook post that included a photo showing cuts on her son’s nose and arm. Hawkins did not respond to a Facebook message Saturday from The Associated Press.

Wildlife officers found and shot the bear, which the agency said was believed to be about 3 years old and would be tested for disease by department specialists.

“It was thanks to the quick reaction by his brother and his family that they were able to distract the bear from what very easily in a matter of seconds could have turned into a real tragedy there,” AZ Game and Fish Department Law Enforcement Supervisor Shawn Wagner told KPHO-TV.

The teen was taken to a local hospital with injuries to his face and arm and has started the rabies vaccine as a precaution but is expected to recover.

“Everybody that came into help him, he had a big thank you and so he’s handling it well. And he’ll be okay,” Carol Hawkins told the station.

The attack was the 16th by bears on people in the state since wildlife officials began keeping records in 1990, including two that were fatal, the department said.

A 66-year-old man was killed almost a year ago when he was attacked at a campsite in the Groom Creek area south of Prescott and about 100 miles north of Phoenix.