Del Oro thwarts Oak Ridge for CIF NorCal Regional Division 1 championship

Even Hollywood script writers would have rejected the story of the Del Oro High School softball team, because it simply wasn’t believable. The Golden Eagles missed the postseason in 2024, winning just seven games. Del Oro stunned the Sierra Foothill League this season, claiming the league title. After falling to league rival Oak Ridge in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship game, Del Oro entered the CIF NorCal Regional shorthanded and with a chip on its shoulder. Some players moved on to travel ball, while others had prior commitments and senior trips. The roster was gutted to nine players, but it was the right nine. The Golden Eagles called up one JV player to bring the roster to 10, giving them no substitutes and no excuses as they secured the NorCal Regional D-I championship by defeating Oak Ridge 5-3 on Saturday in El Dorado Hills. “Last year had a difficult season. There was a lot of adversity and a lot of issues. Last year's team was divided,” says Del Oro coach Sean Erickson. “This year, they showed up on day one and I could feel the difference. They said to me, ‘Last year cannot have any residue to this year. Last year was last year. This year is this year, and we can't look back.’ ” The lone senior that stayed for the NorCal championship was Delaney Osborne, who flew back and forth from her summer vacation plans in Santa Barbara to ensure she could make all three NorCal Regional games. “I wasn't gonna be here for the Thursday game, but I decided that I wanted to be here for my team and my senior trip,” Osborne said, noting it was worth missing her vacation. “I was like, ‘If I'm coming back, we're winning this all.’ There's nobody else I want to do it with than these girls.” Osborne was there for the struggles of last season and made a note to help change the culture of the team in order to go out on top. “We wanted to make it completely different this year,” said Osborne. “We don't ever want to count Del Oro out, and coming back this year just really proved to everyone that we can have a really bad year and come back with the right mentality and just go do it.” Sophomore pitcher Mikayla Finn was dominant. She entered the game mentally and physically exhausted, having thrown nearly 300 pitches Tuesday and Thursday. As drained as the southpaw was, she was never too tired to throw one more, trudging forward to hurl another complete game, despite allowing 11 hits. “It was an amazing performance,” said Erickson. “That's more wear than she's put on that arm this year. We talked about mental toughness. The body is going to have fatigue. The body is going to get tired. When the body gets tired, there's only one thing that makes the body continue to go: It's the brain. She told me that she’s got the mental toughness for this.” Finn said she was never going to let her teammates down and would have given every ounce she had to bring her team across the finish line. “I had to do it for my teammates,” said Finn. “We just wanted it so much, and I think that's what it came down to. We weren't going to lose. It just shows the commitment that each and every one of us has, that we're going to put everything in us into this game. We just wanted it with everything inside of us.” The Golden Eagles built a cushion with three runs in the first inning on an RBI single by Avyn Brower and a two-RBI double by Kate Brown. Caelyn Campos knocked three doubles and scored two runs with her savvy baserunning, while Chloe Champas collected three hits and an RBI. Champas also turned a bunt single into a run thanks to an error. Oak Ridge made one final push in the seventh inning, bringing the winning run to the plate after scoring two runs, but a popup to Brown ended the game and sent the Golden Eagles pouring out of the dugout. Erickson said he knew the Trojans would make one final push, but the Golden Eagles would be ready and would not be denied this time. “That Oak Ridge team is an amazing team. That's why they are back-to back-to-back section champions,” said Erickson. “But the truth of the matter is, so is the mighty Del Oro. (Oak Ridge) showed in the late innings that the champs don't go down easy, and the 21st out of a ballgame is very difficult to get.” Del Oro wraps up its first NorCal title at 31-2 and in the national top 25. Oak Ridge finishes its season at 26-5 and as NorCal runners-up for the second consecutive season. With both teams fielding plenty of youth, Erickson said he fully expects both to be playing in these types of games in the coming years. Erickson also reflected on a quote told to him by former Del Oro Principal Dan Gayaldo, who hired him in 2000, saying, “Everybody wants to be a Del Oro Golden Eagle. In a perfect world, we'd all be Golden Eagles. The problem is we are and they're not.”