AURORA — Be it fall or spring, Eaton’s diamond dominance can’t be stopped.
The Reds won their third straight Class 3A softball title and fourth championship in five seasons with an 8-6 victory over rival University on Saturday at Aurora Sports Park.
It marked the latest breakthrough for an Eaton softball program that’s started to match the supremacy of the school’s baseball team, which owns a CHSAA-record 15 titles, including four in a row.
“Community support and passion for the game are similar in baseball and softball,” first-year head coach Chad Shaw said. “There’s a tradition there. All the 10-, 11-, 12- and 13-year-old softball players up in Eaton see us winning all these games, doing our thing, and holding up that TTUN (Title Town Up North) flag.
“They want to be there, and they work extra hard to put on that uniform that has a big red ‘E’ on it.”
While the Eaton baseball dynasty goes back decades, the emergence of Reds softball among the state’s best is more recent. Eaton made its first appearance in the state softball title game in 2015 but has now played on the big stage six times over the past decade.
Shaw, who spent 18 years as an Eaton softball assistant under Dale Hughes before Hughes retired at the end of last season, explains that the Reds’ three-peat is the culmination of a slow build.
“When Coach Hughes and I were in the program together around 15 years ago, we were lucky to be a .500 club,” Shaw said. “But we started setting goals for the club every season. First, it was to get to the state tournament. Then to get to the second game on Friday. Then to get to Saturday. One day about 10 years ago, in the offseason, I mailed all the players a letter in the summer that was one page that just said ‘Saturday.’
“It was one step at a time. Then it became, ‘Let’s get to the title game.’ Now, we’ve broken through and it’s all come together at the right time with a ton of talent and these three championships. On the back of our shirts this season it says EAT DRT. ‘Effort, Attitude, Toughness, and Do Our Thing.’ As long as we played our game, we would be hard to beat.”
Eaton played a solid game on Saturday afternoon, using a big first inning and a complete game by sophomore right-hander Johanna Galvan to hold off the Bulldogs.
University went up 1-0 in the top of the first, but then Eaton ripped off five runs in the bottom of the frame. Emma Anderson hit a two-run homer, and fellow sophomore Bria Foster followed with a three-run bomb. That made it 5-1 before University was able to even record an out.
The Reds tacked on insurance runs in the second, fourth and sixth innings that enabled them to keep a cushion over the Bulldogs, who were sparked by a two-run homer by junior Natalie Galindo in the third.
In an 8-5 game entering the seventh, University got runners on second and third but was only able to come up with one run as Galvan shut the door. Patriot League champion Eaton finished 26-3, while University finished 21-8.
“They’re a great team and they hit the ball really well, so we knew it was going to be a snowball fight, shootout type of game,” Shaw said. “We stayed the course to the end and we just kept getting outs, even when they (put some runs up).”
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