Chino High is seeing shades of 1985. It was a special year for the softball team.
It was the last time they won a league championship and also the last time they advanced to a CIF Championship game. That was, until this season.
Chino (24-9) took home the Mt. Baldy League championship and after defeating Lakewood, 2-0, in the semifinals they find themselves in the CIF Division 2 final against league and city rival Don Lugo (23-5) on Saturday. The game will be streamed live right here on FOXSportsWest.com at 3:30 p.m.
"It's been a blessing," said Chino head coach Mike Smith. "We keep telling them to just take it one game at a time and anything can happen and they brought into that and here we are."
Chino has a had a lot of things go well for them this season but, it doesn't come as a surprise to Smith that his team is in the final.
"I don't think it's anything that we couldn't have achieved," Smith said. "I tell the kids that we work harder than everybody else and we are very committed in what we do.
"My philosophy is if we work hard in practice, then we go and have fun in the games. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen, but if we know that we've worked hard and put in the time on the practice field, it makes the game time so much easier."
Their hard work paid off when they endured a six-game stretch without sophomore ace Miranda Viramontes. She suffered a back strain during a tournament earlier this season.
Viramontes, who's scheduled to be in the circle for the final, has won 15 straight starts since her return and helped her own cause with a go-ahead solo homerun for the Cowgirls in the semifinals.
"She's pretty dominant as far as pitching goes," Smith said. "When she's in the circle, we got a chance to beat anybody."
To reach her 16th straight, she'll have to do it against a Conquistadores team that the Cowgirls split the season series with.
After battling for the league championship, finishing first and second during the regular season, the teams have become each other's biggest fans during the postseason as they made their way to Saturday's final.
"It's a friendly rivalry," Smith said. "We pull for them and they pull for us. Even when we were making the run through the playoffs, their parents were texting us and our parents were texting them asking them how they did and it's kind of ironic we get to the last game and all of a sudden in the last inning we hear that they already won. It was exciting."
The excitement has been felt throughout the city. Not only are Chino and Don Lugo in the finals, but so is Chino Hills (31-3). They'll take on South Torrance (23-10) in the Division III final at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning right here on FOXSportsWest.com.
"It's exciting for the city of Chino," said Smith, who led Chino Hills to the first CIF championship in school history as their head coach in 2005. "To not have a team from Orange County in the (finals) is huge and to have two teams from the same city is huge. It just goes to tell you the caliber of kids that are coming out of this area to play softball."
The effect of having three teams competing for two championships is something that could help strengthen the support for the programs.
"Maybe we can get some things done now through our district," said Don Lugo head coach Ray Sheffield. "Maybe they'll be happy that we're making a good showing. They're talking about taking buses away and getting coaches' stipends taken away. So now when we go to the board we can show them we have some reason to not get rid of that stuff."
While Chino Hills won a CIF championship in 2005, both Chino and Don Lugo are looking for their first.
