Five years and 11 months ago, Kory Henkes assembled her first team meeting in Oxford. The Rebels were ranked 134th nationally and had finished dead last in the conference tournament a couple months before Henkes arrived from Augusta.

Henkes told her new team that she was there to compete, and Ole Miss would win a national championship. The comment brought disbelief from a few of the players. Some laughs from more than one of them followed Henkes’ words.

But the comment wasn’t preposterous. It was prophetic.

The steady climb from afterthought to respectable to a cute-story contender took its final step on Wednesday, as Ole Miss beat Oklahoma State 4-1 to win the national title, the first championship for a women’s sport in school history.

“I saw it as a great opportunity… that we could really do something special,” Henkes said. “I’ve tried to chip away at it a little bit every year. Tried to bring in players who wanted to be a part of Ole Miss and wanted to be a part of something special.”

It’s not a case of Cinderella. Ole Miss is the best big-game-hunter match play team in the country and hoisted the hardware to put a punctuation on its journey to elite.

The Rebels proved that match play mettle, beating Texas and Arizona on Tuesday after finishing fourth in stroke play qualifying. It’s a sweep of the two biggest events on the college golf calendar, as Ole Miss also won the East Lake Cup in the fall and will defend that title in a few months.

A program that, prior to Henkes’ arrival, had only once finished in the top half of its conference and had never had a top-10 finish in an NCAA regional, now stands as the nation’s No. 1 team. And it did it with depth and shot after shot that beat back adversity.

The Rebels ran through the postseason, except for one round, without Ellen Hume, who struggled with a bicep injury all spring after being arguably the team’s best player in the fall and tied for the individual win at the East Lake Cup.

In her place, freshman Smilla Sonderby had only played in two tournaments in her career and only been in Oxford a semester, but outlasted Texas in extra holes to even make Wednesday possible.

She got up and down from 87 yards in sudden death against the Longhorns to extend her match and win it shortly after.

“To be a freshman and have the whole team riding on you is incredible,” Kennedy Swann said. “That level of pressure is insane.”

Chiara Tamburlini was sick for days prior to leaving for Scottsdale, struggling with symptoms similar to vertigo. At one point, Ole Miss thought Henkes would have to drive Tamburlini across the country because airplane pressure might be unbearable.

She not only played in Arizona but won her match in the finals 6&5, the largest margin of victory of any championship match since the NCAA moved to this format.

Andrea Lignell, who also took out her Texas opponent in extra holes, won all three of her matches over the two days, including the clinching point Wednesday, and then there were Julia Johnson and Swann — the leaders who are now a combined 18-3 in their match play careers.

Swann transferred from Clemson in 2019, and Johnson, an All-American and former SEC Freshman of the Year, decommitted from LSU before joining Henkes on this rapid journey while becoming the most decorated player in program history.

“She hd no business committing to us because we weren’t very good then, to be honest,” Henkes said of Johnson.

Swann won all three of her match play matches, never needing the 18th hole. And Johnson, comfortably ahead of her opponent, was next to Henkes when the clinching putt fell a couple holes ahead of them.

Henkes told her they’d won; they celebrated before finishing up and joining their team.

“We started tearing up and to have her there was pretty cool,” Johnson said.

The Rebels won the SEC Tournament in 2019 and finished 14th nationally, then a program best.

And they were the hottest team in the country when COVID-19 halted the 2020 season, getting word in a Publix parking lot in Augusta, Georgia, the last memory of the season being the team huddling in tears.

A year later, the tears flowed again, but they were of a different kind, and they were on the 17th green at Grayhawk Golf Club.

The goal from six years ago realized. The ascent up the hierarchy complete.

“We’ve been described as gritty, and we’ve been described as scrappy,” Johnson said. “I think we’re both of those, but I also think we’re really good… To prove that and solidify our name is special to us.”