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 back-and-forth NorCal Division I championship game.
But even while Amador Valley’s star was battling a cold that sapped her of even more strength, the junior used every bit of energy and willpower she had left on Saturday to barrel up a ball in the ninth inning and hammer a two-run homer over the fence.
The blast provided the winning runs in Amador Valley’s 13-11 championship victory, Davis’ swing securing and punctuating one of the great softball playoff runs in the history of the state.
“This is one of the most roller-coaster games I’ve ever played,” Davis said. “We didn’t really expect to be here. This is such a shock and we were just so excited.”
The eighth-seeded Dons had stunned the softball community – and themselves – on Tuesday by shocking undefeated St. Francis 4-1 in Mountain View, and then rolled past fourth-seeded Clovis North 7-2 in the Central Valley on Thursday.
After those unlikely victories and hundreds of miles traveled, the Dons rightfully began to wonder, “Why not us?”
“This team had come so, so far,” senior Taylor Oxe said. “Going and beating St. Francis when they were 28-0, and then going and beating Clovis North, we knew we could do it.”
It was the kind of week movies are made of, but in order to complete their storybook run, the Dons had to survive one final test in an epic championship game.
The marathon matchup featured nine lead changes, 29 hits, four home runs in extra innings, and heat so severe that the home plate umpire had to leave the game with what an Amador Valley coach described as a heat-related illness.
“We left our hearts out here on the field today,” Oxe said.
The Dons were up 4-1 after the top of the fourth inning, but host Oak Ridge battled back to tie the game in the bottom of the frame. The Trojans then took a 7-4 lead into the top of the seventh inning, and got the visitors down to their last strike with Oxe up.
With the championship on the line, she doubled to left to drive in one run. Emily Bull, Lauren Tran and Davis got successive hits after that to give Amador an 8-7 lead.
But after getting two quick outs, Oak Ridge strung together a walk and two singles to tie the score, with Kyden Walker singling 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 to extra innings, Amador Valley once again had two outs with the bases empty. McKenna Charbonneau got the momentum back on Amador’s side with a line drive to left.
Mai Falcone turned that momentum into the lead when she belted a two-run homer to left.
“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was going over (the fence),” Falcone said. “I just wanted it so bad for my team.”
Oxe seemed to, surely, secure the title for the Dons when she went back-to-back with Falcone for a solo homer and an 11-8 lead.
Oak Ridge, which had enjoyed a bye after Whitney-Rocklin had to forfeit a semifinal game because of an ineligible player, would not quit. 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 things up a few batters later when Amador Valley committed an error and allowed a runner to score, but Davis once again got out of the jam to strand the winning run at second.
“Kaylee, this is the last game, so go out there and give me 110 percent of what you have,” Oxe told Davis on the bus ride from Pleasanton before the game. “Just put your heart on that field, because we will make plays for you, and will hit when you need us to.”
Davis gave the Dons the lead for the last time in the ninth inning, and then watched as Bull took over in relief and closed out the championship with three popups.
“Emily came out and just shut them down,” Davis said.
Amador Valley coach Courtney Hennings had been a part of some phenomenal Dons teams in the early-2010s, but none of them had an opportunity to play past the sectional playoffs.
“As an Amador alumni, I wish we had this in the past, and it is so exciting to come back and guide these girls to this next level,” Henning said. “It’s an amazing experience.”
Amador Valley finished 19-11.
As several Dons noted after the game, their magical run to regional hardware began long before NorCal play.
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 Division I bracket, the Dons upset defending champion and top seed California in the semifinals and then beat higher-seeded College Park in the final to win the program’s fifth section title.
“They approached this postseason 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 to take over, had set the standard of success in the 2010s.
Borchard may no longer be in charge, but her influence still looms large over the program.
“She always said to peak at the right time,” Hennings said. “We had a little bit of a downfall towards the end of the regular season, but I think them peaking in the postseason was just perfect timing.”
Perfect timing resulted in a perfect ending for Amador Valley’s seniors, who had heard all about the great Dons teams of the decade past, and now added to the program’s rich legacy.
“I’m so proud of us,” said Oxe, who graduated on Friday. “This is an amazing way to end my softball career.”
