After months and months of hard work, practice and dozens of games, it’s all come down to this—the high school softball championship game.

There’s even more than a CIF Southern Section Div. 2 title on the line, however, as Mission Viejo (25-1) takes the field against Chino (27-4-1) in Irvine, Calif… if pitcher Taylor McQuillin and her Mission Viejo teammates can defeat the two-time defending champs, then the Diablos – currently ranked as the No. 1 team in the country –  will most likely be crowned as this year’s FAB 50 National Champs.

No pressure!

In today’s blog, Taylor, the outstanding pitcher ranked as the No. 5 rated prospect in the 2015 class, talks about it all coming down to this game and how her team has prepared for this moment all year.

The Southern California standout has committed to the Univ. of Arizona and after tonight’s championship will next take the field for one of the premier club teams in the nation, the OC Batbusters-Haning.  She is also a standout student with a 4.2 GPA at Mission Viejo (Calif.) High School where she earned 1^st team All-Orange County honors in 2013.

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!

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Every year high school softball season comes to an end and, here in California, teams work towards competing for a CIF title.

This year, my team has made it to the CIF championship game, which is tonight.

There are many things that run through our head as we prepare to take the field one last time this year—for our seniors, it’s even more poignant as they prepare to take the field one last time of their high school careers.

Our team has been preparing for this moment all season and now that it is finally here, we are beyond excited and ready to fight to win. All the hard work and amount of time and effort we put into our season has paid off and now we need to finish.

All year our team’s motto has been “Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose,” the motto from the movie Friday Night Lights. And all year our motto has kept us strong and helped push us towards getting the final victory of the year.

At this point, with the championship game just hours away, nothing else can be done and we are as prepared as we will ever be.

Yes, there are butterflies and nerves but that’s the best part of the game. The anxiety and adrenaline is the build-up towards the game; the intense situations and competition is what we live for!

The final game is where we want to be and our team is ready to play under the lights and try to do something that hasn’t been done at our high school before.

At the end of the day, we are playing for our school, our community and, most importantly, playing for those who can’t play. This game is where we want to be and what we’ve worked so hard for.

I have faith in my team and I know they support me just as much as I support them. We are bonded as one on and off the field and that’s something that is very rare.

Nothing will stop us from fighting and playing to prove we are supposed to be playing in this game.

Very soon, we’ll take the first step out onto that field and the game will begin. As our coach says, “It’s not about winning the individual battles, it’s about winning the war.”

One game left. One goal to accomplish.

We will do whatever it takes to complete our mission.

— Taylor McQuillin