The Santa Clarita Valley softball scene was well represented in late July after Ella Iacenda and Julianna Arriaga captured the Alliance Fastpitch 12U National Championship with the Orange County Batbusters Legacy Stith-Arduino 12U team in Indiana.
Tony Arduino, who’s the head coach of the 12U Batbusters team based in Orange County and head softball coach at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, spoke on the team’s win in late July and said the win wouldn’t be possible without the two SCV players.
“[Ella Iacenda] is a special talent. Physically, she’s strong, and just a strong kid who has a lot more room to grow,” Arduino said in an interview with The Signal. “[Julianna Arriaga] came to us late in the year … she added a dynamic to our lineup. You know, she added some power to our lineup. And she added a little edge to our lineup as well.”
Arduino said the journey to being a national champion wasn’t easy.
Since last August, the 12U Batbusters team won around 100 games but only practiced as a team once or twice during the weekends with playersfrom all over Southern California.
Throughout the season, the 12U Batbusters qualified for the national championship in Indiana in a college softball tournament-like format that featured regionals all the way into the final edition of the championship series in July.
The 12U Batbusters defeated teams from across the country and won the national championship in a series sweep over the Atlanta Vipers 2031, who are from Georgia, including a 12-1 victory in game two.
“We started by qualifying for the national tournament back in August of last year. We qualified, and then there were 70 teams that qualified in the 12U division,” Arduino said. “It’s a lot of teams from across the country to make this trip to Indiana for the Alliance championship, and it’s really a testament of how good this team was to outlast 70 teams total in the 12U division and to come out on top.”
Throughout the year, Iacenda threw for 203 innings pitched, and struck out 265 batters along with a 1.17 earned run average in the circle. In the batter box, Iacenda recorded 127 at-bats and tallied a .488 batting average with 62 hits.
After the championship series in Indiana, Iacenda was named the most outstanding player in the tournament after leading the team to a 10-0 record.
“[Ella] is one of the hardest throwers in the 12U Division. Not only is her velocity what makes her special, but her ball moves more than most pitchers. I mean, nothing she throws is straight,” Arduino said. “She was just completely dominant from the first game until the last. I mean, we obviously have a great team behind her as well. Play good defense, but it starts in softball and it starts in the circle. And she was about as dominant as you could be in a tournament.”
As for Arriaga, she joined the team in December and played half of the season for the 12U Batbusters team.
Although she played half the season, Arriaga recorded a .396 batting average with 53 hits, eight home runs, and 53 runs driven in, across 134 at-bats. And during the championship series, Arduino said Arriaga played selflessly and stepped up for her team when other players went down with injury.
“We asked her to do a lot in the Alliance Championship tournament,” Arduino said. “She started off catching, but our first baseman got hurt in the middle of the tournament. So, we asked her to move over and she and did whatever we needed her to do, she stepped up and did it. And she’s a really big reason why we won the national championship.”
