JSerra softball head coach Katie Stith and also the 2026 State Coach of the Year celebrates with players after team won CIF Southern Section D1 championship. Photo: jserraathletics / Instagram.com.
Daughter of legendary travel ball coach Mike Stith of OC Batbusters fame has been the head coach at JSerra of San Juan Capistrano for eight years and now gains the highest California high school coaching honor. Her team has been setting school records the past two seasons, including a victory over Norco in this year’s CIF Southern Section D1 championship.
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While having eight losses proved to be too much to gain a No. 1 state ranking compared to an unbeaten team, even as the CIF Southern Section D1 champion, that hasn’t prevented the JSerra of San Juan Capistrano softball team from having its players or its head coach considered for all of the highest honors. One of those is State Coach of the Year and today that big one is being announced for JSerra’s Katie Stith.
For taking a program when she started eight years ago that was struggling to reach a .500 in the very difficult Trinity League to a point where it’s now clearly at the same level as other top programs in the CIF Southern Section, Stith already has received several other coaching honors for the 2026 season, including Orange County Coach of the Year, L.A. Times Coach of the Year and CIFSS D1 Coach of the Year (that last one always goes to the championship coach even if he/she has won it before).
Stith is just the second State Coach of the Year from Orange County in the last 20 years, joining now retired Ed Tunstall from Esperanza of Anaheim for the 2021 season. Rob Weil, now of Los Alamitos, was the last honoree from the county before that from his previous school, Pacifica of Garden Grove, for 2003. The all-time list dates back to 1974.
State Softball Coach of the Year Katie Stith is interviewed in a JSerra podcast hosted by baseball head coach Brett Kay, who guided the Lions to back-to-back CIFSS D1 titles in 2022 and 2023. Photo: JSerra Media.
The Lions came into this season with some high expectations after falling in extra innings to Los Alamitos in last year’s CIFSS D2 championship. Senior pitcher Liliana Escobar, a Florida commit who later signed with the Gators, and sophomore catcher Annabel Raftery, who led the team in home runs and RBI, were among the returnees.
The early part of the season then showed how strong Stith’s team was going to be. After a 5-0 start, the Lions headed to the Dave Kops TOC in Arizona and notched wins over Los Alamitos, Bonita of La Verne, preseason state No. 1 Norco and then La Mirada to reach the title game. The 10-0 start was then stopped by Murrieta Mesa of Murrieta, another CIFSS powerhouse.
Most of the losses (four to be exact) then came in the Trinity League. There also was a rematch with Norco that the Cougars won. JSerra started to build some momentum with a 3-1 win over league rival Orange Lutheran, dropped a game to Mater Dei (which prevented a co-title with OLu), but then went on a similar run in the CIFSS D1 playoffs that resembled the run the Lions went on in Arizona.
With Murrieta Mesa ousted by upset in an earlier round, Stith’s team then faced Norco for the third time in the semifinals and posted a 2-0 win. Escobar pitched a three-hitter and Raftery hit a home run to lead the way in that win.
In the CIFSS D1 final, the Lions were tested by La Mirada, which had two runners on base in its last at-bat and trailing by just one run, but Escobar got the last out for a 3-2 victory. JSerra players, fans and coaches could then celebrate a first-ever CIFSS title. Both JSerra and La Mirada then opted out of the CIF SoCal D1 regional playoffs.
“It was different (this year),” the coach told the Orange County Register after the final game. “I’m just really proud. There was never a moment where they looked defeated or they looked overwhelmed or they looked intimated. They just really worked together.”
In addition to Raftery, who had 12 homers this season and batted .429, senior Zena Edwards batted .395 and cranked out seven homers. The emergence of freshman Magenta De Arte (.330, 31 hits) was another key to the season. Escobar wound up with a 1.25 ERA and had 252 strikeouts in 146 innings.
Mike Stith of the OC Batbusters travel ball team is shown during a recent national championship awards presentation. Photo: Extra Inning Softball.
If that last name is familiar and you’re a softball fanatic, you know that Katie is the daughter of legendary OC Batbusters travel ball coach/director Mike Stith. Her dad was once voted as the top club coach in the nation by a vote of over 90 percent among 300 travel ball coaches across the country that was conducted by our friend Brentt Eads, who was running the Extra Inning Softball web site at the time and who now runs Line Drive Media. How does someone get 90 percent of the vote in anything? Stith has won numerous travel ball national titles and has helped develop numerous college All-Americans and Team USA members.
Katie Stith played at Ayala High in Chino Hills where head coach John Ameluxen has been since 1990 and gained a scholarship to play at the University of Nevada. She was a three-year all-league performer for the Wolfpack and graduated in 2009 with degrees in both business management and marketing. After working in the business world, Katie didn’t get into coaching until 2015 and got busy with the OC Batbusters. The job at JSerra that she took in December of 2018 was her first at the high school level.
Katie currently coaches the 14-under team for the Batbusters program in addition to high school coaching and in 2023 directed that squad to the Alliance Fastpitch National Championship.
In looking up info about her dad, we were very happy to find out he is a graduate of St. Paul High in Santa Fe Springs and played football there for the late Marijon Ancich, the second-winningest head football coach in state history. Mike Stith also coached football before getting heavily involved in club softball and has said he took a lot of what he learned under Ancich into all of his coaching and organization.
“She puts a lot of work into this,” Mike Stith told the Orange County Register when talking about his daughter after the Division 1 final. “She’s built a program.”
There’s little doubt about that.
All-Time List Cal-Hi Sports
State Softball Coaches Of The Year
Del Oro head coach Sean Erickson was last year’s top coaching honoree and his team in 2026 won CIF NorCal D2 title. Photo: Mark Tennis.
2026 – Katie Stith, SJ Capistrano JSerra (25-8)
2025 – Sean Erickson, Loomis Del Oro (31-2)
2024 – Jason Ramirez, Whittier California (28-5)
2023 – Jim Bennet, Poway (29-3)
2022 – Mike Centrullo,
Chula Vista Mater Dei Catholic (22-11)
2021 – Ed Tunstall, Anaheim Esperanza (22-2*)
2020 – No selection (pandemic)
2019 – Matt Sweeney, Pleasanton Foothill (28-0)
2018 – Teresa Mayes-Borchard,
Pleasanton Amador Valley (23-5-1)
2017 – Mike Noel, Clovis (25-6)
2016 – Judy Shaubach, Madera (26-7)
2015 – Margaret Neill, Lancaster Paraclete (27-4)
2014 – Margaret Mauro,
San Diego Cathedral Catholic (29-3)
2013 – Mike Smith, Chino (26-2)
2012 – Rick Robinson, Norco (30-2)
2011 – Scott Smith, Hollister San Benito (29-1)
2010 – Teri Johnson, Union City James Logan (25-5)
2009 – Tony Dobra, San Pedro (28-4)
2008 – Duane Zauner, Lake of the Pines Bear River (29-3)
2007 – Mary Jo Truesdale, Sacramento Sheldon (29-1)
2006 – John Perez, Corona Santiago (26-5)
2005 – Art Banks, Roseville Woodcreek (28-6)
2004 – Pete Ackermann, Westlake Village Oaks Christian (34-1)
2003 – Rob Weil, Garden Grove Pacifica (31-2)
2002 – Brad Griffith, San Diego Mira Mesa (35-1)
2001 – Gary Walin, Thousand Oaks (24-5)
2000 – Jo Ann Byrd, Corona (28-4)
1999 – Jim Liggett, Belmont Carlmont (35-4)
1998 – Joe Given, Salinas Notre Dame (30-2-1)
1997 – Alan Dugard, Irvine Woodbridge (34-2)
1996 – Nancy Acerrio, Chula Vista Hilltop (27-2)
1995 – Marie Dean, Fremont Washington (27-0)
1994 – Joe Gonzalez, Tustin Foothill (25-7)
1993 – Jill Matyuch, Covina Charter Oak (29-0-1)
1992 – Jeff Carlovsky, Escondido (26-2)
1991 – Kevin Newman, San Jose Gunderson (33-2)
1990 – Susie Calderon, Huntington Beach Marina (28-5)
1989 – Sharon Coggins, Ventura Buena (28-2)
1988 – Rich Kerr, San Lorenzo Arroyo (29-1)
1987 – Bob Regpala, Stockton Lincoln (30-0)
1986 – Dick Barnes, El Monte Arroyo (22-1)
1985 – Neils Ludlow, Woodland Hills El Camino Real (19-0)
1984 – Aaron Ishikawa, Stockton Lincoln (37-1)
1983 – Carol Hamilton, San Diego Madison (23-1)
1982 – Rich Spiekerman, Lodi (29-3)
1981 – Leslie Steffen, Hanford (20-4)
1980 – Bob Bush, Santa Maria Righetti (29-0)
1979 – Barbara Weding, Santa Rosa Montgomery (26-1)
1978 – Peggy Linville, Fairfield Armijo (23-0)
1977 – Betsy Ward, Huntington Beach Marina (17-0)
1976 – Janet Balsley, Chula Vista Hilltop (17-0)
1975 – Sally Carmen, Downey Warren (19-1)
1974 – Sandi Behrmann, El Segundo (undefeated)
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
