Top sports stories: Colusa softball finally wins section title for coach

The year certainly provided a healthy dose of excitement for sports fans in Glenn County, with varsity high school, junior varsity and even youth sports programs shining when the lights were brightest.

There were Northern Section championships and league championships, as well as appearances in championship contests, and win or lose, they all gave us reasons to cheer.

For more than two decades Randy Watt put together a strong softball program at Colusa High but the Northern Section title always eluded his grasp — until 2012.

In his 23rd and final season, a team with three sophomores and one freshman in the starting lineup made the long road trip to play top-ranked Mt. Shasta High on May 19 and pulled off a 4-3, 12-inning victory.

The 2012 Northern Section Division V softball championship isn't just Watt's first, it's the first title in the Colusa softball program's history.

The victory felt especially good for Watt, who won four section titles in four years as the RedHawks girls soccer coach, but only made the section championship in softball one other time, losing to Etna 2-1 in 2009.

"To be perfectly honest it was good to win because I finally got a championship in something I know about," Watt said with a laugh.

Some of the teams Watt coached had better records and appeared to be better in box scores, but the 2012 team had something special down the stretch, he said.

"Maybe this team was better than the other teams, particularly the last two games, they were really emotionally involved to a level I hadn't seen before," Watt said.

The RedHawks (17-6-1, 9-1 Sacramento Valley League co-champions) needed eight innings to beat Quincy in the semifinals.

Mt. Shasta (31-4, 10-0 Shasta Cascade League champions) jumped on RedHawks starter Sophia Garcia for two runs on three hits in the first inning, but she settled down and allowed just four hits in the next 11 innings.

Garcia not only pitched brilliantly for 12 innings, striking out 16 Bears hitters, but she also led off the top of the 12th with a single, advanced to second on a sacrifice by catcher Brittanee Garcia and scored on a single up the middle by shortstop Ashleigh Biggs.

Garcia then pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the 12th for the victory, getting the Bears to ground out twice and getting the other out on a foul pop-out.

Biggs earned Sacramento Valley League co-MVP honors, and Sophia Garcia, Brittanee Garcia, Mattie Myers and Emily Corriea joined her on the All-League team.