Othello captures fourth state title in school history

SELAH — Othello beat Fife 3-1 to win the 2A state championship game Saturday at Carlon Park in Selah.

Huskie seniors Diamond Franco, Lidize Deeon, Kirsten Quigley, Madison Martinez, Hadassi Valdez and Jacky Garza finished third as freshmen, second as sophomores and third again last year as juniors. Now as seniors, they will have lasting memories of how they became the fourth state champion softball squad in Othello program history.

“We had a felling that this year we were going to do it,” Othello coach Rudy Ochoa said.

The Huskies opened the state tournament with an 11-3 win over Sequim, beat Port Angeles 5-2 in the quarterfinal round, and outscored R. A. Long 5-1 in the semifinals before defeating Fife 3-1 to walk away with the state trophy.

Othello junior Nikki Martinez, the CWAC player of the year, gave up just two hits and struck out four in the title game. Martinez threw every pitch for every one of the four games during the state tournament for the winning Huskie side.

“She’s a great pitcher,” Ochoa said. “We’ve got her back next year.”

Martinez and Fife pitcher Anna Kasner hooked up for a pitchers’ duel in the title game. Kasner struck out 10 and gave up just four hits. Neither team was able to score in the first four innings.

“She was very hard to hit,” Ochoa said.

Franco drove in a run with a two out double in the bottom of the fourth, but Kasner hit a two-out home run in the top of the fifth to tie the score at 1-1.

Lidize DeLeon walked, Dominique Martinez singled and Mariah DeLeon blasted a shot that nearly cleared the centerfield fence to drive in both DeLeon and Martinez, giving the Huskies a 3-1 advantage they maintained to earn the program’s fourth state title.

“We got real patient on her (Kasner) because a lot of her balls were going very high,” Ochoa said.