Pueblo's run to Monday's state title game is no ordinary fairytale

When Curtis Ruiz attended a game at ASU’s Farrington Stadium in Tempe last October, he didn’t envision returning some seven months later to coach on that same field.

Actually, Ruiz at the time didn’t even know he’d be Pueblo’s softball coach this spring. He wasn’t hired until January, so the thought of this visit to Tempe was far from a reality.

Not anymore.

Ruiz and his fifth-seeded Warriors play No. 2 Camp Verde in the Division IV state championship game at Farrington on Monday at 7:30 p.m., with a chance to capture the program’s first state crown since 1990.

Pueblo (25-6) is coming off a 10-0 mercy-rule win over top-seeded Benson in Saturday’s semifinals and has outscored opponents 32-5 through three playoff games.

“From tryouts to now, it’s been like a fairytale,” Ruiz said. “You couldn’t have written it any better.”

Ruiz, a 42-year-old probation officer, has coached softball for more than a decade, but this is his first experience at the high school level. He applied for the Pueblo job two years ago but didn’t get it, so he gave it another shot when it opened up again before this season, and landed the gig.

“My older daughter had a real bad experience with high school ball,” Ruiz said. “My goal, the reason I wanted to coach, was to bring it back to the girls. I had seen a lot of coaches who let their ego kind of get a hold of them and, especially for my seniors at Pueblo, I just wanted to make it one of the best years that they’ve experienced.”

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Ruiz’s older daughter, Mari, is now a freshman on Phoenix College’s softball team. It was her game at ASU during the fall season that drew Ruiz to Farrington Stadium last October.

This time around, the coach will get to be with his younger daughter, Ariana, a sophomore pitcher and outfielder for the Warriors.

“What an amazing feeling it’s going to be to step on that dirt,” Ruiz said. “To be able to go to a place like that, it’s almost like stepping on holy ground of softball so it’s going to be awesome.”

Ruiz says he knew it was going to be a special year from the beginning, when Pueblo opened up regular-season play with a 10-0 win against a Nogales squad that was coming off a state semifinals appearance.

“I didn’t know how far we would get,” Ruiz said, “but I knew we were going to do something great this year.”

The other reason Ruiz knew the Warriors were poised for something big was because of the hunger to win in his seniors, who have been vital in getting the team to this point. Nickole Robles pitched a complete-game two-hitter on Saturday, improving to 13-2, while fellow seniors Alizea Corday and Vanessa Duarte have helped power the offense, combining for nearly 80 RBIs and more than 40 extra-base hits.

Pueblo won a total of 25 games over the last four seasons combined but could exceed that in one year with a victory Monday night.

“This has been 25 years in the making,” Ruiz said. “For us to do it with this group of girls, it’s been an amazing ride. I don’t even know how to describe it.”