16-and-Under Girls Softball Team Wins Championship 'For Our City'

A not-so-quiet "storm" hit San Bruno earlier this month and, happily, the city might never be the same.

The San Bruno Storm 16-and-under girls softball team recently returned from a trip to the Western "B" Nationals in Hillsboro, Ore., where they rallied in the last inning to finally get the better of their Buena Park rival and earn a hard-fought championship.

"I don't think there's anything that can top this," assured ace pitcher Allie Fonseca, who began her senior year at Capuchino High last week. "It's one thing to win titles for your school. But this was for our city. We did something wonderful for our city."

Fonseca was one of eight Capuchino girls on the 15-player team, all of whom rushed onto the field to celebrate Selina Rodriguez's game-winning double in the bottom of the seventh that turned a 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 win in the title game.

It was quite a different feeling from a year earlier, when many of the same girls were eliminated by the Strike Force team in the Western Nationals semifinals in Lancaster.

"We didn't really celebrate last year because we finished third," Storm manager Raul Rodriguez noted. "When we came up that last time, we told them we still had a chance to win it all this time."

And that they did, thanks in large part to the contributions of Fonseca, fellow pitcher Chia Santiago and their six Mustang mates: catcher Jaime Navarro, third baseman Jessica Shelton, and outfielders Jacey McDaid, Kelly McDaid, Amanda Labrado and Maria Luevano.

"Even at school,, everyone knows we won the championship," Fonseca happily reported. "We're still soaking it all in."

That experience isn't likely to end anytime soon. Just this week alone, for example, the team will be honored by the San Bruno City Council (today) and the San Francisco Giants (at Friday's game).

The Storm, a collection of girls from five different West Bay high school programs, had to know winning the Western Nationals was within its grasp even before making the trek north.

After all, not only had the Storm finished third in Lancaster as one of the youngest teams in the 2009 tournament, but also several of the key players had led Capuchino to a second-place finish in the Central Coast Section playoffs last spring.

If that wasn't enough, an 18-0 start to the summer and four championships in six tournament appearances stamped the Storm as one of the teams to beat.

Alas, that apparently didn't impress the Strike Force. It rained all over the Storm 8-0 in their first meeting in Hillsboro, forcing a winner-take-all championship game.

Down 5-4 entering the bottom of the seventh and final inning despite a two-run homer from Jacey McDaid and a two-run single by Shelton, the Storm was three outs away from an ultimate demise at the hands of the Buena Park squad once again.

But up stepped the top of the order, and three hits later — a single by McDaid and consecutive doubles by Tori Eng and Selina Rodriguez — the Storm was the one dancing on the infield this time around.

"I don't know what it feels like in the Major Leagues, but after Selina's hit, I felt like we had just conquered the world," gushed manager Rodriguez, the hero's dad.

"We had the top of the order coming up, so I knew we could do it. I was worried, but the girls were cool, calm and collected."

In the end, Rodriguez knew where the credit belonged.

"The amount of talent was so incredible," he boasted, "we really didn't need to coach these girls."