EL DORADO HILLS — Kaylee Davis was exhausted after eight innings of baking under the relentless El Dorado Hills sun, throwing pitches to a stacked Oak Ridge lineup in a home-and-home NorCal Division I championship game.
But even as the Amador Valley star battled a cold that robbed her of even more strength, the junior used all the energy and willpower she had left Saturday to throw a pitch in the ninth inning and hammer a two-run homer on the field. fence.
The blast provided the winning runs in Amador Valley’s 13-11 championship victory, with Davis’ swing securing and punctuating one of the great softball playoff runs in state history.
“It’s one of the most exciting games I’ve ever played,” Davis said. “We didn’t really expect to be here. It’s such a shock and we were so excited.
The eighth-seeded Dons stunned the softball community — and themselves — Tuesday by shocking undefeated St. Francis 4-1 in Mountain View, then beat fourth-seeded Clovis North 7-2 in the Central Valley on Thursday.
After these improbable victories and hundreds of miles traveled, the Dons rightly began to ask themselves: “Why not us?”
“This team had come this far,” senior Taylor Oxe said. “Beating St. Francis when they were 28-0 and then beating Clovis North, we knew we could do it.”
It was the kind of week that movies are made of, but to complete their storybook run, the Dons had to survive one final test in an epic championship match.
The marathon game featured nine lead changes, 29 hits, four extra-inning homers and heat so intense that the home plate umpire had to leave the game with what an Amador Valley coach described as an illness linked to heat.
“We left our hearts here on the field today,” Oxe said.
The Dons led 4-1 after the start of the fourth inning, but host Oak Ridge fought back to tie the game late in the inning. The Trojans then took a 7-4 lead in the top of the seventh inning and brought the visitors back on their final strike with Oxe on top.
With the championship on the line, she doubled back to the left to run within one. Emily Bull, Lauren Tran and Davis then had successive hits to give Amador an 8-7 lead.
But after getting two quick outs, Oak Ridge followed up with a walk and two singles to tie the score, with Kyden Walker single on a hard ground ball to drive in the tying run and put a runner at third.
After Davis induced the popup to extend the game into extra innings, Amador Valley again went two outs with the bases empty. McKenna Charbonneau regained momentum on Amador’s side with a line shot to the left.
Mai Falcone turned that momentum into a lead when she hit a two-run homer to left.
“As soon as I touched him, I knew he was going to go over (the fence),” Falcone said. “I wanted it so much for my team.”
Oxe surely appeared to secure the title for the Dons when she faced Falcone for a solo homer and an 11-8 lead.
Oak Ridge, which had received a bye after Whitney-Rocklin had to forfeit a semifinal match because of an ineligible player, did not want to give up. Emery Glaser gave the home crowd a chance to go crazy when she hit a home run to left to cut the deficit to one.
The Trojans tied it up a few batters later when Amador Valley made an error and allowed a runner to score, but Davis once again got out of trouble to strand the winning run at second.
“Kaylee, it’s the last game, so go out there and give me 110 percent of what you got,” Oxe told Davis on the bus ride from Pleasanton before the game. “Just put your heart on that field, because we’ll make plays for you and hit when you need it.”
Davis gave the Dons the lead for the final time in the ninth inning, then saw Bull take over and close out the championship with three popups.
“Emily came out and just stopped them,” Davis said.
Amador Valley coach Courtney Hennings had been part of some phenomenal Dons teams in the early 2010s, but none of them had a chance to advance past the sectional playoffs.
“As an Amador alumna, I wish we had this in the past, and it’s so exciting to come back and guide these girls to that next level,” Henning said. “It’s an incredible experience.”
Amador Valley finished 19-11.
As several Dons noted after the game, their magical run to regional hardware began well before the NorCal game.
Amador Valley finished third in the East Bay Athletic League and lost in the semifinals of the league playoffs.
Seeded fourth in the North Coast Section’s Division I bracket, the Dons upset defending champion and top-seeded California in the semifinals, then defeated top-seeded College Park in the final to win the title of the fifth section of the program.
“They approached this playoffs with a whole new mindset,” Hennings said.
Teresa Borchard, who stepped down after last season to let former player and 2015 Amador Valley graduate Hennings take over, had set the standard for success in the 2010s.
Borchard may no longer be in charge, but his influence still looms large over the program.
“She always said to peak at the right time,” Hennings said. “We had a bit of a dip towards the end of the regular season, but I think their peak in the playoffs was just perfect timing.”
Perfect timing resulted in a perfect ending for the Amador Valley seniors, who had heard all about the great Dons teams of the past decade and now added to the program’s rich legacy.
“I’m so proud of us,” said Oxe, who graduated Friday. “It’s an incredible way to end my softball career.”
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