The Warrior Academy kids are back on top of the Softball Alliance world.
Warrior Academy won its second national championship in five years, capturing the USA Softball Alliance Fastpitch Championship Series 16U crown Sunday in Westfield, Indiana, sweeping two games from Impact Gold Jazz-Texas in the title round. The Warriors opened the best-of-three series Saturday, July 26, with a 5-4 win, then clinched the championship Sunday with a 6-2 victory.
It’s been four years since the San Mateo-based Warriors put themselves on the national map, when the 2021 team anchored by Megan Grant and Olivia DiNardo won the Alliance Fastpitch 16U national championship. Many of the players from this year’s 16u team, however, are as much as seven years younger than Grant and DiNardo, as a majority of the players on the 16U roster are 14 years old.
“For sure, much younger,” Warrior Academy coach Mickey McDonald said. “When they won it (in 2021), they were all juniors in high school, and our team (this year) is predominantly all freshmen in high school.”
Leadoff hitter Star Gutierrez is one of those players. Entering her sophomore year at Capuchino in the fall, Gutierrez is among the group of players who rostered with the 16U squad in Indiana, and are now playing for the 14U team at the Premier Girls Fastpitch national championships this week in Huntington Beach.
With the Warriors going 11-1 in Indiana, Gutierrez hit leadoff in every game, opening the tournament with a seven-game hitting streak. She went on to hit .450 (18-40), with 14 runs, eight RBIs and seven stolen bases.
Gutierrez was patrolling center field in the bottom of the seventh inning when the Warriors recorded the final out of the tourney Sunday — a grounder to shortstop Gia Ryan (San Ramon Valley) — to set off the championship celebration.
“It was the most emotional I’ve ever felt about a softball game, ever,” Gutierrez said.
Starting pitcher Lila McLeod (San Ramon Valley) closed out the title with back-to-back complete games, and totaled six CGs in the tourney. In the finale, she allowed two runs (one earned) on two hits, two walks and one hit batter. She struck out two and induced 12 groundouts.
“Her drop ball is amazing,” Gutierrez said. “The drop ball is so scary. I’m so afraid to hit against her. ... If we didn’t have any errors, she would have a shutout game every time.”
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The Warriors navigated a tenuous path to the championship, though, after falling 5-4 to the St. Louis Chaos, Monday, July 21, in the tournament opener. Had the Warriors lost one more game in pool play, they would have dropped to a secondary tier. Instead, they bounced back Tuesday, July 22, to win four games in one day and earn a chance to play in Tier 1 with the top 32 qualifiers in the nation.
“After that first game, we just kept winning and winning and winning, which made it great on our pitching,” McDonald said.
In the Saturday, July 26 championship series opener, the Warriors trailed 1-0 early. In the second, Ryan tied it on a Madilyn Sekera sacrifice fly to score Skylar Loo. In the third, AJ Tatum doubled home Ryan to put the Warriors ahead 2-1. Ryan then connected for a two-run home run in the fifth, and later in the inning Arielle Henriquez doubled home Loo to make it 5-1.
The Impact rallied back with three unearned runs in the sixth inning, but McLeod buckled down with two on and two out to induce an inning-ending groundout to Loo at third base. McLeod set down the side in the seventh on three straight groundouts to end it.
In Game 2, the Warriors rallied for six runs in the second, capped by a two-run single by Loo. The Impact scored single runs in the fifth and sixth to avert a six-run mercy-rule decision after six innings. But McLeod retired the side in order in the seventh.
“Nothing’s better than winning the championship,” McDonald said. “You work so hard for it. You play through a grindy schedule, and you get the reward at the end of it.”
The national championship finishes out the second postseason title for McDonald this year. He also served as the third-base coach at Serra for the Padres’ Central Coast Section Division I baseball championship run.
Now in Huntington Beach, Gutierrez and the Warrior Academy 14U squad are off to a 3-0 start in the PGF double-elimination tournament — recording wins of 1-0 over the BSC Bengals-Southern California on Monday; 6-4 over Lady Dukes National-North Carolina on Tuesday; and 11-0 over the Choppers-Southern California on Wednesday. The tournament concludes Saturday.
“I have a really good feeling about this tournament,” Gutierrez said. “I think the energy from Indiana is still in our veins. So, we’re really pumped.”
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