Destiny Christian: State Team of Year

Everything had to fall into place for the Destiny Christian of Sacramento softball team to be able to finish in the rarified air of being an undefeated State Team of the Year. But that’s what happened plus there was a CIF NorCal D1 championship that had to be won, which was completed last Saturday with a 6-3 win over Whitney of Rocklin. The Lions are the first State Team of the Year from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section since Sheldon of Sacramento in 2008, a fact that has a lot of meaning for head coach Shannon Tuua. We have all of the other state record updates that the Lions have achieved this season within this writeup.

FOR THE OTHER 2026 SEASON STATE TEAMS OF THE YEAR (BY DIVISIONS), CLICK HERE.

FOR MORE DETAILS OF DESTINY CHRISTIAN’S WIN IN THE CIF NORCAL TITLE GAME, CLICK HERE.

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There’s a major difference between record-setting totals and players gaining major accolades for a team that doesn’t end the season with a major championship and one that does. That’s what was on the line during last week’s CIF NorCal D1 softball playoffs as top seed Destiny Christian of Sacramento was playing in tight semifinal and final games vs St. Francis of Mountain View and Whitney of Rocklin.

Destiny Christian cleared the first hurdle with a 4-3 win over St. Francis and then two days later cleared the other with a 6-3 victory over Whitney. The two wins wrapped up a 31-0 record to go with the NorCal title and that made it a somewhat easy choice to make the Lions the 2026 Cal-Hi Sports State Team of the Year.

The Lions are the first State Team of the Year from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section since 2008 when the nod went to Sheldon of Sacramento, which had a 32-2 record and won games against teams from Southern California. Sheldon happens to be the alma mater of Destiny Christian head coach Shannon Tuua (she was Shannon Brooks then). She played for the Huskies and their former legendary head coach Mary Jo Truesdale, in the early 2000s.

“Mary Jo had such a great program and it means a lot to be on any kind of list for a team that she coached,” Shannon said after last Saturday’s victory. “It means our program has gotten to an elite level, too.”

The Lions also are just the third unbeaten State Team of the Year in the past 30 years. The last one was Archbishop Mitty of San Jose in 2009, which was mainly able to finish 32-0 due to a win over Sheldon that season at the Livermore Stampede. That team was led by Ms. Softball State Player of the Year Keilani Ricketts (later led Oklahoma to a national title), which is similar to Destiny Christian of this season that had a powerful hitter and pitcher of its own in Ayla Tuua (Shannon’s daughter). That Sheldon team in 2009 might have been better than 2008 and ironically was a stronger opponent than any that Destiny Christian faced this season.

Counting all levels, the 31-0 final record for Destiny Christian will go into the Cal-Hi Sports state records at No. 4 on the all-time list. Mitty’s 32-0 is No. 2 behind Sutter of the CIF Northern Section, which went 34-0 also in 2009. Ocean View of Huntington Beach still holds the distinction of being the last unbeaten CIF Southern Section top divisional champion when it went 32-0 way back in 1985. St. Francis went 26-0 in 2021, but there were no playoffs that year as some COVID restrictions were still being followed.

The path for the Lions to perhaps reach as high as No. 1 in the state started to come into focus around the beginning of April. Knowing that this year’s team would be led by one of the top players in the nation with Tuua, along with several other top returnees and one key transfer, the school played several notable opponents early on, including perennial power Sheldon, defending CIF NorCal D1 champion Del Oro of Loomis and St. Francis, which also is a previous NorCal champion (2022). Destiny Christian was still unbeaten after a 1-0 win at St. Francis.

Another local team on the same trajectory was Ponderosa of Shingle Springs, which notched wins over teams like Whitney, Elk Grove, Rocklin and Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills (2024 NorCal champion) and also had not lost heading into the final weeks of the regular season. It was easy to see that a possible showdown between Destiny Christian and Ponderosa would happen in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D3 championship and then the winning team would get a high seed for the CIF NorCal D1 playoffs because with competitive equity seeding by the CIF whatever division Destiny Christian and Ponderosa were in for their section had no bearing.

The two teams kept moving up in the state rankings and were into the top five when the playoffs began. The showdown didn’t happen, however, as Ponderosa was upset in the section semifinals, 4-3, by Vanden of Fairfield. The Vikings stunningly scored all four runs in the top of the seventh inning. And in the Sac-Joaquin Section, the runner up teams only go to the NorCal playoffs in the higher divisions. Ponderosa’s season also was over. Destiny Christian then beat Vanden in the section title game, 4-1, and then was indeed seeded No. 1 for the NorCal D1 bracket.

Even with those developments and even finishing at 31-0, other results from around the state also contributed greatly to Destiny Christian’s final No. 1 ranking.

First, due to the overall high-level strength of the CIF Southern Section D1 playoffs and the fact that the top teams in those playoffs all face each other a lot more often than top teams in the north do, both Norco (last year’s CIFSS D1 champion) and Murrieta Mesa of Murrieta Mesa (won the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions in Arizona early in the season) would have finished higher ranked than Destiny Christian if either one had won the CIFSS D1 title. Neither one did. Norco lost in the semifinals to JSerra of San Juan Capistrano (ended with 23-8 overall record) while Murrieta Mesa went out in an earlier round.

Another team that would have had an argument to be No. 1 at the end was Mater Dei Catholic of Chula Vista. The Crusaders won their second straight CIF SoCal D1 title (JSerra and Norco opted out) and had a 31-3 final record. They also played Norco in a non-league game late in the season and lost 5-1. If MD Catholic had had a win over Norco in that game plus the two straight titles plus a 32-2 final record it’s easy to see that it could have been first with the Lions second. Instead, the Crusaders will have their two titles but will have to be behind Norco in the final rankings. If the CIF had state title games this year (they are beginning for the first time next season) then it would have been Destiny Christian vs Mater Dei Catholic.

Tuua hit her 19th homer of the season to start the scoring for the Lions in their last game. The bigger blows, however, were from sophomore Ella Dossey with a three-run shot in the fifth that turned the game around and then a two-run blast two batters later by Roxanne Sardo for a 6-2 lead. Those home runs pushed Destiny Christian’s season total to 63, which is going to go into the state records in a tie for third on the all-time list (Chino Hills 2019) and is a new record for both Northern California and the section.

There were no other records set by the team, but it will go into the record books in several other categories, including team batting average (.459), runs scored (374), total hits (368) and doubles (76).

All of the records showed that other players besides Tuua was what put the Lions over the top. While Dossey and Sardo both had those big homers in the NorCal final, in the semifinals it was sophomore Takiyah Haygood who had a two-run homer and RBI single. Senior K.K. Fulmer was the leadoff hitter and had 42 hits with a .600 batting average. Senior Maddi Woodcock, who is the daughter of assistant coach Lance Woodcock and is almost like a cheerleader the way he fires up the team and its fans, had 34 hits and a .382 average.

“Absolutely this shows how much of a team sport softball can be,” Shannon Tuua said. “Ella was just phenomenal and I can’t wait to see what she does in the future. Every single player did a great job this season.”

ALL-TIME CAL-HI SPORTS
SOFTBALL STATE TEAMS OF THE YEAR
(Selected by Cal-Hi Sports)

2026 – Sacramento Destiny Christian (31-0)
2025 – Norco (29-3)
2024 – Garden Grove Pacifica (27-2)
2023 – Hollister (30-3)
2022 – Mountain View St. Francis (31-2)
2021 – Anaheim Esperanza (22-2)*
2020 – No Selection
2019 – Norco (31-1)
2018 – San Marcos (28-2)
2017 – Los Alamitos (27-3)
2016 – Mission Viejo (27-4)
2015 – Yucaipa (31-3)
2014 – Mission Viejo (26-1)
2013 – Corona Santiago (31-5)
2012 – Norco (31-2)
2011 – Corona Santiago (28-5)
2010 – Chino Hills Ayala (29-5)
2009 – San Jose Archbishop Mitty (32-0)
2008 – Sacramento Sheldon (32-2)
2007 – Valencia (32-1)
2006 – Oakley Freedom (25-0)
2005 – Simi Valley Royal (29-2)
2004 – Garden Grove Pacifica (31-2)
2003 – Garden Grove Pacifica (31-2)
2002 – San Diego Mira Mesa (31-1)
2001 – Fresno Bullard (36-1)
2000 – Tustin Foothill (33-2)
1999 – Fresno Bullard (38-1-1)
1998 – Clovis Buchanan (35-2)
1997 – Garden Grove Pacifica (31-1-1)
1996 – Santa Ana Mater Dei (30-1)
1995 – Huntington Beach Marina (24-5)
1994 – Clovis (31-3) (plus 2 wins by default)
1993 – Covina Charter Oak (29-0-1)
1992 – Stockton Lincoln (35-3)
1991 – Stockton Lincoln (29-3)
1990 – Roseville (37-2)
1989 – Lakewood St. Joseph (26-1)
1988 – Santa Fe Springs St. Paul (21-6)
1987 – Stockton Lincoln (30-0)
1986 – Woodland Hills El Camino Real (19-0)
1985 – Huntington Beach Ocean View (32-0)
1984 – Stockton Lincoln (37-1)
1983 – Lodi (27-2)
1982 – San Diego Madison (20-0)
1981 – Santa Maria Righetti (25-1)
1980 – Santa Maria Righetti (29-0)
1979 – Santa Rosa Montgomery (26-1)
1978 – Fairfield Armijo (23-0)
1977 – Huntington Beach Marina (17-0)
1976 – Chula Vista Hilltop (17-0)
1975 – Downey Warren (18-1)
1974 – El Segundo (undefeated)

*Forfeit loss not included.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports