Butte enjoys conference title, now awaits playoff seeding
Butte Valley >> One team, one goal.
That's been the Butte College softball team's mantra this season.
Now, the Roadrunners have one championship.
The softball team won the Golden Valley Conference championship on Saturday, the program's first since 1988, first-year head coach Stayce York said.
A sweep of Redwoods, both by identical 9-0 scores, extended the team's winning streak to 10 and secured the outright conference title for Butte (31-9, 13-3 GVC).
"It's just insane to think that it's been since 1988. It's 2015," Butte pitcher Jessie Salsbury said.
The Roadrunners are waiting for the release of the California Community College Athletic Association playoffs this Saturday to see who their foe will be in a best-of-three weekend series that will be played May 2-3. As a conference champion, Butte hopes that series will be at home.
"The group of girls who we have bought into our system. All 15 of them. They have the utmost confidence in themselves and each other," York said.
Last year, Butte made the playoffs as a 15th seed.
"We scraped it together last year," Salsbury said.
This season has been far different.
"We have come a long ways from the beginning, and now we're at the peak of our playing ability and it's just been wonderful to see us grow," Butte first baseman Kiley Mansfield said.
Mansfield figured her softball days were behind her when she graduated from Pleasant Valley High in 2011. Mansfield had a volleyball scholarship to New Mexico State. She ended up at Sacramento State to continue playing volleyball before knee injuries curtailed her time on the court. But she never played softball in college, meaning she still had eligibility.
"The opportunity presented itself so I took advantage of it," Mansfield said.
She sure has. She led all GVC players with a .504 batting average and .563 on-base percentage.
Joining Mansfield is her older sister Kelsey Mansfield, also a freshman despite graduating from PV in 2009. The older Mansfield has been another big bat in a lineup full of them. She's one of five in the top 15 in batting average.
Sammi Minter, another standout from PV before a knee injury suffered in her first at-bat her junior year ended her prep career when a second surgery was needed, has regained her old form.
"One through nine can hit," York said. "Allison Taylor was hitting in our nine spot and had a couple of grand slams, a couple of home runs. We have a lot of confidence in one through nine."
Taylor, another PV grad, came over from Lassen when that program folded. So did Kaitlyn Wright, further bolstering a roster. Wright, another Paradise product, completed the staff with Salsbury and Ariel De Trinidad, a Chico State transfer. The trio are second through fourth in the GVC in ERA with De Trinidad's 2.10 best. Salsbury's 17 wins and 141 strikeouts are first.
"We had a completely different team in the fall than we do now," Salsbury said.
But it helped that four of them came from PV, five from Paradise, and 13 of the 15 players hail from the Northern Section so some familiarity was a starting point.
"It's helped a ton. We probably have played together since we were 8 years old," said Salsbury as she's been throwing to her old batterymate, catcher Cassidy Burnett with shortstop Taylor Peters behind the pitcher making plays and Kelsey Haigh in the outfield, providing another potent bat.
Haigh and Salsbury, freshmen last year, took it upon themselves to get more area players to join the team. That accelerated York's aim of keeping homegrown talent a year ahead of schedule.
"That's what we're trying to turn Butte into now," Salsbury said, "a winning program."
photo by Dan Reidel — Enterprise-Record