What an amazing month it’s been for Taylor McQuillin, the junior pitcher from Mission Viejo, Calif.!

Taylor hit the “Triple Crown” of success at the high school level:

• she led her team to a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) sectional title
• the Diablos finished with the No. 1 ranking in the final FAB 50 national rankings
• last week, Taylor was honored with the Gatorade National Player of Year award

She actually sent this blog last week the night before her getting the Gatorade National POY and I knew at that point—even before she did—that she would be winning and would be privileged to go to the press conference at the school’s pep rally where she was presented with the award.

So, this blog was held back a few days since we did so much coverage of her last week!

In today’s blog, Taylor, ranked as the No. 5 rated prospect in the 2015 class, talks about the championship game win and how it was the culmination of everything she and her Diablo teammates had worked for.

The Southern California standout has committed to the Univ. of Arizona and is now pitching for one of the premier club teams in the nation, the OC Batbusters. She is also a good student-athlete with a 3.97 GPA.

Perhaps Taylor’s greatest accomplishment is she has done all this despite having to overcome birth defects making her completely blind in the left eye and with only partial hearing on the left side.

Be sure to check out Taylor’s previous blogs and those of our other standout bloggers!

Video of Taylor receiving the Gatorade National Player of the Year

Official Gatorade National POY announcement

 

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With CIF complete and our team winning, this high-school season has definitely been one for the books.

Winning CIF has brought our team and school a ton of excitement and accomplishment which we are elated to be a part of!

Our team was the first ever team to win CIF for our school and we are so proud to be the group of girls to represent the first-ever softball title for Mission Viejo High School.

Championship Day came and our school decorated the quad and front of the school with tons of posters, streamers, and balloons to show their support. Each of our lockers were decorated with stuff and during our third period classes ASB brought each girl on our team a bouquet of flowers with balloons.

At lunch there was an entire line of people buying tickets to come support us at the game that night and our team, along with the ASB, made shirts for all of our fans to wear to the game. It was unbelievable to see the side of our stands once we entered the stadium because we were so honored and taken back by the amount of people that came to support us.

We thank each and every one of them. It really showed how close our student body and faculty is and how, no matter what sport, we all support each other.

As everyone at Mission likes to say, it’s always a great day to be a Diablo!

We played the two-time defending champions for Division 2, Chino High. Both teams were pumped up and ready to go as we stepped on the field under the Friday Night Lights.

The championship game was extremely intense and filled with a great amount of emotion from both teams. The game was so close that neither team could score within the regular seven innings and we were forced into extra innings to fight for the CIF title.

The only two hits of the game were the very first batter and the very last batter. That right there shows how tight of a game this was and how intense every pitch of every at-bat was.

The lead-off hit I gave up didn’t phase our team at all; in fact, we turned a double play to end the first inning, but Chino came out strong, too, and they weren’t going down without a fight.

The bottom of the 9th inning was definitely the inning our team will never forget. We started with a lead-off walk. Then Chino got one out. An error on a chopped highball to the shortstop got runners on first and second with one out.

That brought us back to the lead-off batter, Alyssa Palomino, and with that the Chino coach was out on the field with his team telling them to walk her. That meant the bases were loaded for Kayleen Shafer with only one out.

With two strikes on her, the pitch came and she chopped one up the middle and the winning run scored from third base!

The crowd went absolutely crazy and everyone from our school showed how much support they really gave us. Our team ran out to the field and did the natural “dog pile” on top of each other.

Hugs and cheers were given out everywhere and we were all excited. No words could describe the feeling of winning the championship game… it’s a the feeling that will stay with us forever.

The team we had this year will always be the team I remember most because of how closely bonded we were and how special of a year we had.

Our motto will always remain “Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose.”

And ultimately that’s what we did each and every time on the field. We finally achieved our goal and left it all out of the field for the final game of the year.

— Taylor McQuillin