Del Oro blanks Whitney, climbs back into first-place tie in SFL softball race

Del Oro High School's softball team spent the first half of Sierra Foothill League play chasing. On Wednesday, the Golden Eagles finally caught Whitney. Behind a shutout by junior left-hander Mikayla Finn, a three-hit performance and aggressive baserunning by Caelyn Campos, and an early home run by Avery Enyart, Del Oro beat the Wildcats 3-0 to split the season series and force a tie atop the SFL standings. For a program with section-title expectations and memories of last season's NorCal championship run, the victory felt less like an upset and more like confirmation that the Golden Eagles are starting to resemble the team they expected to be. "We've got jet fuel, and it sounds like we're starting to take off again," Del Oro coach Sean Erickson said. The Golden Eagles (12-6 overall, 7-1 SFL) set the tone immediately with the kind of pressure Erickson encourages from his fastest players. Campos opened the bottom of the first with a double, then quickly turned that into the game's first run by stealing third and scoring on a passed ball. Moments later, Enyart turned on a pitch and drove it over the left-field fence, stretching the lead to 2-0. Campos' speed changed the game again in the third. After reaching base for the second time, she broke hard from first on Emma Johnson's lazy fly ball to right. The ball was briefly lost in the sun, allowing it to drop in for a hit. Campos never hesitated, racing all the way home for Del Oro's third run. Campos finished 3 for 3 with a double, two stolen bases and two runs scored. "Baserunning is something we emphasize. We got to be sharper. We got to take more bases," Campos said. "Our coach said, 'I'm never going to be mad at you if you're aggressive and you get out.' So I think baserunning is one thing that I just take pride in." Erickson said Campos' instincts make it easy to give her freedom. "I want her to be her," Erickson said. "If you are someone else, then you're not the player you can be. If you are you, that's all we need." Erickson added that Campos' greatest strength is not just her speed but her awareness of the moment. "She's got good softball IQ," Erickson said. "I don't have to tell her very many things. I generally have to ask her, 'Hey, are you seeing what I'm seeing?' And most of the time she says yes." Erickson said his trust in Campos gives her the freedom to be aggressive, but she is not the only player he trusts without hesitation. That same trust showed in the circle with Finn, who has steadily sharpened her form after an uneven opening month, worked through several Whitney threats and delivered one of her most composed outings of league play. The junior allowed four hits over seven shutout innings, walked two and struck out two. The biggest outs came in the sixth. With the bases loaded and Whitney threatening, Finn fielded a comebacker and started a 1-2-3 double play that erased the jam and preserved the shutout. "There's nothing going through my head," Finn said. "It was just reflexes." Finn added the team's mentality has shifted significantly from the opening weeks of the season, when last year's success may have created an expectation that things would come easily. "A month ago, we were going in with the mentality that everything was going to fall into place and it was going to be exactly how it was last year just on its own," Finn said. "But from here to now, we've realized that if we really want it to be the same season it was last year, we have to be having the right mentality." Part of Finn's growth Wednesday came in her willingness to make in-game adjustments. After relying heavily on her rise ball in past seasons, she mixed in a drop ball, which she particularly pitched inside to Whitney's right-handed hitters, to keep the Wildcats off balance. "My go-to put-away pitch in the past years has always been a rise ball," Finn said. "But recently, last August, I started throwing a drop ball, and that was big." Erickson said Finn's maturity has shown in how confidently she now helps shape the pitch plan herself. "She came to me and said, 'I want to throw this. I don't want to throw that. They've seen it,' " Erickson said. "So I give her that flexibility." The win may have mattered most in what it says about Del Oro's trajectory. Campos said the team returned from the Michelle Carew Classic in Southern California with a different edge. "The talent is good down there, and we come back, and we come up here, and we think we just can face anyone," Campos said. Erickson felt the same shift. Earlier in league play, he said, Del Oro felt like a team starting to sputter a little bit but now, he sees acceleration, and the timing could not be bigger. By pulling even with Whitney (15-7, 7-1) in the standings, Del Oro moved from the team doing the chasing to the one everyone else now has in sight, with Rocklin looming Friday just one game back. Said Erickson, "Now that we've caught up, I think we like to be chased."