For the softball team at CSUB the scenes from last Saturday’s win are still a blur. "I can't even explain the feeling I had," said game winning pitcher, senior Amber Mills.
But before the trophy was lifted, the final strike called, the home run that set it all in motion and even before this season started begins a story where words are equally hard to place.
“Johanna was very quiet on her recruiting trip," recalled head coach Crissy Buck-Ziegler.
Johanna, or Jo Larios, is the starting catcher for the Runners. Players and coaches say she’s the heart of the team.
“She’s the first catcher that I’ve had to where she holds me accountable for anything," said Mills. "If i miss she’ll call time come out and be like ‘hey you need to hit that next time.”
But her arrival to Bakersfield almost never happened. Her senior year of high school she wasn’t sure about her future saying, "I was talking about maybe going to the army or something.”
At every one of her games her mother was her biggest fan but after an eleven-year battle with lupus in her liver and an auto immune disease, Elsa Larios called her daughter into her room with a dying wish.
“You’re going to go play college softball. You’re going to promise me that," Jo recalled her mother saying. True to her word she played at a junior college in Oklahoma and then committed to CSUB nearly a year to the day after her mom passed away. "It was a sign," said Mills.
Flash forward to the championship game and with two outs in the last inning of a scoreless tie, Jo stepped into the batter’s box and called on her mom. “We typically pinch hit for her in that situation and I looked at my staff and I said I have a feeling about Jo," said coach Buck-Ziegler.
After working the count full Jo stepped out. "During that whole at bat I just kept saying ‘Come on mom. Come on mom," she said.
You can read her lips as she stepped back in and Jo said, “I believe she was definitely there with me.”
What happened next will forever stand in the history of CSUB but until now perhaps not properly appreciated. As she celebrated rounding the bases after a hit that just cleared the wall in left center field there’s little doubt with her or anyone else on the team that Jo’s mom was at the game. "I bet she was going crazy," said Larios.
Making the moment even sweeter, though in the context of this story perhaps unsurprising, the hit that sent the Runners to regionals was Jo Larios’ first home run at CSUB.
"It was everything wrapped up in one moment," said coach Buck-Ziegler. "For her to be the one that did it because she is the heart and soul of this team. She loves this program. She loves everything that we stand for."
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