The Pima College softball team won its third straight Region I/West District title Saturday and is headed back to the NJCAA Division II National Tournament.
The Aztecs (47-8) will compete at the national event from May 19-24 in Spartanburg, S.C.
Top-seeded Pima beat No. 2 South Mountain CC 1-0 in Tucson in the championship game. Sahuarita High grad Izabel Rodriguez drove in Sunnyside grad Soleil Ponce with an RBI single in the bottom of the sixth for the game's only run.
Adriana Machado (18-3) went the distance to earn the win. The Canyon del Oro grad tossed a five-hit shutout, striking out three. She was named the Region I, Division II Tournament's MVP.
Pima College shortstop Clarissa Figueroa makes the catch on a blooper into short center field in the opening game of the region tournament on May 7, 2026, in Tucson.
“I made a comment to my team before we went out and I said, ‘I will do my job if you guys do your job,’” Machado said in a press release. “My changeup and my curveball were really working for me today. I had the chills coming in, but I knew my team was going to be behind me throughout it all.”
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Rodriguez and Ponce each had two hits.
South Mountain had forced a winner-take-all contest by topping Pima 9-1 earlier Saturday in six innings.
“After that first game, it wasn’t us, and everyone took that 30-minute break," said Pima's Lopez-Bedoy, a Sunnyside grad, in a press release. ‘Be by yourselves, let it all go and wash it out. Let’s show them how we’re supposed to play and how we do play around here at Pima.’”
The Aztecs opened the tournament with a 7-0 win over No. 4 seed Scottsdale CC on Thursday as Machado threw a nine-hit shutout.
Friday, Pima advanced to the championship round by beating South Mountain 5-4 on a ninth-inning walkoff hit by Isabel Mendoza (Cienega) that scored Clarissa Figueroa (Mountain View). Mendoza and Angelina Dehler (Empire) each had three hits and two RBIs in the victory.
Pima College's Isabel Mendoza drove in the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning in the Aztecs' win over South Mountain CC in the region tournament on May 8, 2026.
Camacho, Quiroz honored
Pima's Belen Camacho was named the ACCAC Division II Pitcher of the Year last week. The Pueblo grad was 15-2 with a 2.56 ERA and 155 strikeouts in 115 innings during the regular season.
Rebekah Quiroz was named the ACCAC Division II Coach of the Year for the first time. Quiroz, who has a 251-136 record in eight seasons, is the first Pima coach to win the award since Stacy Iveson in 2005.
Joining Camacho on the all-ACCAC first team were catcher Lopez-Bedoy, infielder Jisella Nunez (Tucson High) and outfielder Rodriguez. Lopez-Bedoy hit .368 with 38 RBIs in the regular season while not committing an error in the field. Nunez hit .395 with 13 homers and 55 RBIs. Rodriguez batted .440 with 80 hits, 53 runs and 17 stolen bases.
Pima's Amerika Lopez-Bedoy slips home with the opening run on a sacrifice fly by Clarissa Figueroa against Scottsdale CC in the third inning, May 7, 2026. Pima went on to win the game 7-0 and two days later, the region championship.
