WHO: The Weslaco High School Lady Panthers softball team.

WHAT: A state championship win in a league of its own.

WHY IT’S SO GREAT: For most of Saturday’s state championship softball contest in Austin, it looked like it just wasn’t Weslaco’s game. The Rio Grande Valley school’s opponents, from Waco’s Midway High School, jumped out to an early lead, which they extended to a daunting 9–3 advantage with a pair of home runs at the top of the seventh and final inning. Weslaco’s run to the state title game seemed destined to end in another second-place finish. But the Rio Grande Valley girls still had one more half inning to play—three outs to save their championship hopes. 

Surely and steadily, Weslaco cut the lead to two runs after a string of base hits and one hit by pitch. With the bases loaded, Weslaco’s Andrea Ortiz stepped up to the plate. The sophomore shortstop was 0–3, with two strikeouts and a fly out to left field. Nevertheless, with a full count of three balls and two strikes, Ortiz belted a walk-off grand slam home run over the left field wall to take the game, 11–9. With the ball still in the air, the crowd erupted into cheers as the winning runs crossed home plate and the Lady Panthers collapsed in a victory huddle on the field. “When I came to the plate, I told my coach, I told my teammates, I told them, ‘I got it! I got it!’ ” Ortiz told KWES immediately after the game. “I was repeating it over and over in my head and I had it! I came through for my teammates.”

Weslaco won the crown in the University Interscholastic League’s 6A classification, which includes the state’s largest schools and is generally considered the most competitive level of Texas high school sports. The school’s softball championship is only the second 6A state title that any RGV school has ever won in any sport. 

Celebrations ran throughout the weekend, with one Weslaco restaurant treating the new champs to dinner. Weslaco High held a pep rally for the victors and announced plans to add a permanent display at the entrance to the school’s football stadium to commemorate their achievement. 

“I’m just so proud of the community and the whole city of Weslaco,” Coach Mario Rodriguez said at the pep rally. “They supported us.”