The University of California San Diego hosted Carlsbad High School’s and Patrick Henry High School’s girls softball teams for the CIF game last Friday night.

Making it to this game was not an easy task. Carlsbad had to earn their spot in the playoffs.

“We ended up losing last Sunday and ended up going in the loser’s bracket which gave us the harder road because we were the underdogs all the way through. Patrick Henry was number one seed so they had a by their first game” senior Yesenia Betancourt said.

The CIF game itself was also challenging as they faced Patrick Henry, the first seed in the league games.

“It was a pretty close game all the way through,” Betancourt said. “We were down at one point, I think by one or two runs. And then we came back in the sixth inning. Hannah Lutz hit a home run, a two-run homer so that helped a lot. And then Deja Hill hit in two more people in the seventh inning and that’s when we took the lead.”

The fact that it was the championship game was not the only significant thing about the game. It was a special way to finish a long softball career for many of the players.

“There’s a lot of seniors on the team, and it was an amazing way to end our high school softball careers,” Betancourt said. “A lot of us have been playing since 8U together at CSA.”

Their optimistic attitudes, commitment to practice, and well-applied offense and defense all contributed to their successful game.

“We were ranked number six seed and Patrick Henry was number one, undefeated in their league,” Betancourt said. “So, we knew we had a tough competition but we had high hopes. We’ve gone through all this, we can’t not win.”