Former Trojans standout Catalena Sandoval to play softball for California college

A 2024 Pahrump Valley graduate is getting ready to start the next chapter of her education in another state.

Catalena Sandoval, a former student-athlete standout for the Trojans, recently signed with Feather River College in Quincy, Calif. where she will play softball after the tryouts prove her spot on the team.

Yet the pressure of the sport clouded her decision to continue to play softball in college or not after she received an offer to play at the college.

“It felt like it was Christmas,” Sandoval said when she opened her acceptance letter in the mail. But she had to sit on the offer before she decided if playing softball in college was the right decision for her.

The ‘dream’

Sandoval attributes her interest in softball to her father, although he believes her interest came after she watched her older sister play softball when she was around age 3.

A year later Sandoval was on a little league team where she would unknowingly spend the next 14 years of her life playing the sport.

“It was always a dream to play softball in college,” Sandoval said. “That was my goal since I was little.”

When Sandoval started playing softball, her dad became her coach for roughly a decade up until she started her freshman year where he passed the torch to the Pahrump Valley softball coach.

Her father, Domonique Sandoval, remembered how committed to improving his daughter was.

After her games, instead of decompressing, she would look over the videos her mom took of her performance. She would call her father to brief him on how the game went and where she could improve.

There were a couple of times that the father would come home from work after her game and she was streaming it to the living room TV.

“If she had a bad game, she was pretty hard on herself,” her dad said. “She was very competitive, didn’t like to lose and that was a big problem for her [before] she got it under wraps.”

This was a trait she didn’t know could impact her decision-making. Added with the stress of her senior year, she was under the pressure of not knowing if her last year at high school would be her last time playing the sport forever.

“You either continue pushing through or you just call it quits when your season is over,” she said.

After talking with coaches, she realized she wouldn’t be recognized if it wasn’t for her hard work that paid off in the end. She spoke with her older brother who had a similar struggle, not knowing if he wanted to play a sport in college.

He understood what she was going through and helped her get through her senior year. She also turned to her friend for advice and they realized that she wasn’t ready to retire from softball.

Her coaches would tell her how talented she was at the sport and encouraged her to continue playing. This sparked her passion for the sport once again, especially after making it to the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association 3A state championship playoffs.

Playoff year

Before the last school year ended, the Pahrump Valley High School softball team made it to the playoffs while the school’s baseball team was left behind.

The softball team made it to the regional playoffs in second place, where they made it to the end to play against Boulder City for the second time in the playoffs and lost the championship game 18-3, but that still allowed them to make it to the state playoffs.

“When we won to go to the state tournament, I literally ran past everybody and just went straight to my dad,” she said. “Since I was a kid my goal has always been to get [to the state tournament] and I will always believe my dad helped me get to where I am today.”

In the first game of the state playoffs the Trojans faced off against the northern team’s top team, Churchill County. Pahrump Valley and Boulder City both lost their first state playoff representing the Southern Nevada teams.

The Eagles booting the Trojans off the bracket wasn’t strong enough to keep Churchill County at bay though, as they ended up winning the state championship.

Along the way Catalena Sandoval’s stats stood out to the Feather River College softball coaches. She was a pitcher and utility player; she had the most steals in the entire state rankings with 59 steals.

In the Nevada 3A Class, she scored in the top 25 for batters struck out with 35 outs. Her batting average was in the top 15 and her earned run average was the second highest in her class and in the top 40 in the state.

Off to college

After being scouted by the college she and her family took a tour of the campus and the program, and she was sold on the program and her final decision was made to attend the college.

“I think my parents were a lot more excited than I was,” she said when she accepted the college’s offer. At college Catalena will be majoring in biology when she starts in the middle of August.

This will be the Sandoval family’s last child to leave the nest. Domonique Sandoval said the house will be quieter.

“I know my mom is going to be a cry-baby that all her kids are out of the house now,” Catalena Sandoval said. “My dad tries to put on a brave face but I know he’s gonna be sad too.”

Dad echoed what his daughter said but he promised her that they’d make the trip up to California to watch her games.

When asked to share a piece of advice she would tell seniors, “No matter what, mistakes happen,” she said. “Let loose and remember why you started playing.”

Contact Jimmy Romo at jromo@pvtimes.com. Follow @JimmyRomo.News on Instagram.