Team of Destiny: DCA softball caps perfect season, beats Whitney for NorCal title
Softball in the greater Sacramento region has been a thing for decades, with scores of top teams, top players and driven coaches. Saturday punctuated the sentiment.
Destiny Christian Academy High School of Sacramento and Del Oro of Placer County each won CIF Northern California championships, hoisting the hardware in Division I and Division II, respectively, the highest classifications in the state.
Top ranked in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, DCA beat Whitney of Rocklin 6-3, breaking it open in the fifth inning on the strength of three home runs, and Ayla Tuua earned the win in relief, inducing a strikeout to ice it in setting off a celebration as the Lions capped the season at 31-0.
DCA put an exclamation point on perhaps the greatest season in regional history, given the competition. DCA’s record this season is topped locally only by the Sutter Huskies, who went 34-0 in 2009. Sutter owns the state record with 19 CIF section championships, 18 of them in the Northern Section, and all of them at the small-school level.
DCA by enrollment is small, but the efforts of the Lions and the resume of opponents conquered reveal a monstrous program with a season for the ages to cherish. This is the third NorCal banner for the program in four years and the first at Division I. The CIF NorCal tournament started in 2022. The CIF will include a CIF state championship game in this sport starting next June.
Ella Dossey ripped a three-run homer in the crucial fifth inning for a 4-2 DCA lead, and Purdue-bound Roxy Sardo moments later hammered a two-run shot for a 6-2 advantage. The LSU-bound Tuua homered in the first, her 19th blast of the season. DCA leadoff hitter KK Fulmer, a Vanguard commit, had three hits, Delaware State-bound shortstop Takiyah Haygood had two doubles, and Maddi Woodcock, headed to East Texas A&M, had a double.
Kaitlyn Johnson had a two-run homer for Whitney in the top of the first inning. Whitney finished 26-9 after winning two games on the road as a lower seed in the NorCal tournament.
As for any notion that DCA didn’t play tough teams — a common critique on social media — players and coaches remind that that simply isn’t true. The schedule included opening the season with a 5-1 win over longtime large-school powerhouse Sheldon of Sacramento, a 3-0 win over Del Oro, a 1-0 win over Bay Area powerhouse Saint Francis, and then a 4-3 effort over that Mountain View program on Thursday in a NorCal semifinal.
“We played a great schedule,” said DCA coach Shannon Tuua, mother of Ayla Tuua. “We knew we could play with anyone.”
Tuua the star senior has had quite a week and one heck of a career. She helped power her club to NorCal victories on Tuesday and Thursday and was on Friday named the California Gatorade Player of the Year for the second straight season. She is also well on her way to earning her fourth Sacramento Bee Player of the Year honor as an all-time area great.
Tuua finished the season with 77 RBIs, 10 double, three triples and 62 runs scored. Her batting average was .655. Her 19 home runs are a Sacramento and CIF Sac-Joaquin Section single-season record, according to the Cal-Hi Sports online record list. DCA as a team crushed 63 home runs. Tuua’s 48 career homers are a NorCal record.
Tuua was also 11-0 in the pitching circle. She said it was “an honor” to play with her teammates and for her mother, who was The Bee’s Player of the Year in 2002 at Sheldon when she went by her maiden name of Shannon Brooks.
“Such a blessing,” Ayla Tuua said. “I started softball playing with my mom as my coach, and now I’m ending my high school career playing for her. It’s such a full-circle moment, and I’m truly blessed.”
Del Oro repeats as a NorCal champ
Del Oro 5, Alameda 0 — In Division II play, the No. 2-seeded Golden Eagles of Placer County defeated the Alameda Hornets of the Bay Area despite being shorthanded to win the second consecutive NorCal banner for coach Sean Erickson and crew.
Del Oro won the NorCal D-I title last season.
Freshman Katharine Popovski started in the pitching circle and starred with Cal-bound junior ace Mikayla Finn unavailable. Popovski tossed a complete-game two-hitter, striking out six, to end her season in the pitching circle at 10-1. Popovski also had two hits and drove in two runs, including an RBI single in the top of the sixth inning to give Del Oro a 4-0 lead. Leadoff hitter Chloe Champas gave Del Oro a 3-0 lead in the second inning with a two-run base hit.
Avyn Brower had three hits and an RBI, Avery Enyart had a hit, Nancy Barberio had a hit and scored twice, and the Golden Eagles finished the season 23-8. Del Oro tied Whitney for the Sierra Foothill League championship and capped the campaign by beating the state’s top-ranked Division II team in Alameda, which finished 24-6.
Del Oro has been a power since the 1990s and has won eight CIF Sac-Joaquin Section crowns. The program first became state-ranked in the 1990s under Mike Takayama, also a 600-game winner in girls basketball at the Loomis school.
Since 2009, coach Sean Erickson has kept the Golden Eagles among the NorCal elite.
This story was originally published June 6, 2026 at 8:24 PM.