Only one team can win a championship per season, but that doesn’t make losing any easier.

The Pioneer High School softball team’s dream for a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section championship came to an end Saturday morning as they lost the Division IV final to Destiny Christian Academy 4-0, at Sacramento State University.

The Patriots (23-6, 10-2 Monticello Empire League) clinched their ticket to the big game this past Tuesday with an 8-2 win over the No. 6-seeded East Union. Before that, the No. 2-seeded Patriots beat No. 7 seed Beyer 4-0 in the quarterfinals before a huge 16-1 win over the No. 15-seeded Del Campo in the opening round.

Before the playoffs, in their first season in the new MEL, the Patriots shared a three-way split of the league title with Vanden and Rodriguez after all three teams took a game off one another.

Destiny Christian Academy 23-2, 14-0 Golden Empire League) enjoyed an undefeated season in the league, having perhaps the exact same year the Patriots would have had, had they stayed in the GEL. Destiny Christian turned that undefeated league season into the No. 1 overall seed in D4.

In the opening round of the playoffs, the Lions took out No. 16 seed Nevada Union 12-0, before taking out No. 9 seed Rio Linda 9-0 in the quarterfinals. They clinched their ticket to the D4 championship following a 13-3 win over No. 5 Placer this past Tuesday.

This now marks the third time that the Pioneer High School softball program has finished as the section runner-up. They won the title in 2006 and then went back-to-back in 2013 and 2014.

Back-to-back triples and a fielding error were the main ingredients to a three-run bottom of the first inning from the Lions, as they raced out to a sizeable 3-0 lead.

After a ruthlessly efficient middle portion of the game where both teams combined for four 1-2-3 innings and a few other one-hit innings, the score remained at 3-0 going into the sixth inning.

While the Patriots did manage to get two base runners on in the top of the sixth, the most they had up to that point, they’d go scoreless, leading to a final insurance run via a double in the bottom of the sixth, to make it 4-0.

After a pop out, strikeout, and single, one out stood in the way of the Lions clinching the title. They’d go on to induce another pop-up to the next batter, catch it along he first base line, and wrap up the section title by the final score of 4-0.

Junior Grace McGinty led the way for the Patriots at the plate, with a team-high 2 hits. Senior pitcher Jia Beebe and Abril Parker, along with junior Marisa Bryson, recorded the team’s other hits.

On the mound, Beebe was fantastic, going all six innings, allowing only 3 earned runs, while walking 1, allowing 8 hits and striking out 2.