The562’s coverage of Millikan Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Brian Ramsey and TLD Law.
Millikan softball has proved its dominance on the diamond year after year, but their wins go beyond Snowden Avenue. As the Rams have moved on from high school into their future careers, they carried Millikan’s championship mindset wherever they went.
Natalie Lopez is a former Ram who proves this case time and time again. After graduating from Millikan in the Class of 2023, Lopez went on to play collegiate ball at the University of Redlands where she just won the program’s first-ever NCAA DIII Championship.
“We’ve always played with a bullseye on our back, but we don’t let that affect us,” Lopez said. “We just keep doing us, we’re not going to do more than what we are as a team.”
This reigning champ mindset isn’t anything new for Lopez. When she was at Millikan, the Rams stood as a dominant powerhouse in the Moore League — a position that hasn’t changed after winning five consecutive league titles from 2021-2025.
The feeling of being a champion isn’t the only piece of familiar territory Lopez treads at the University of Redlands. One key aspect to their national title this year was the tight team camaraderie, something Lopez said was exactly the same as a Ram.
“We’re very close, we’re all best friends,” Lopez said of her Millikan class. “With my Redlands team, it was the same dynamic — we’re all just best friends, and we want to play together for as long as possible. So, I think that’s what led to both successes on both teams.”
Building up to the national title, the Redlands were a dominant team in their own right. The team was 48-6 overall with a 20-1 in-conference record. The year prior, Redlands was also dominant on the diamond with a 40-11 overall record, going 18-3 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC).
“We had an unbelievable season — we built on what we did last year as well,” Redlands Head Coach Jose Ortega said. “A big piece of why we were so successful this year was because they just liked hanging out with each other.”
The on-field success Lopez has experienced both at Millikan and Redlands all comes back to this tight team dynamic. One of the biggest advantages of this cohesiveness is its ability to keep the game fun in high-stress situations.
“When the relationships are really well and connected, when those players are rooting you on and wanting you to have success as well, it just takes the pressure off of you individually to go and perform,” Ortega said. “When you have other reasons for wanting to succeed, it makes it a lot easier for you to go and be able to do that.”
Ortega said this level of high spirit was especially evident before the championship game. The head coach said he watched his players make TikToks and do their makeup before the game which allowed the team to loosen up before stepping on the field.
“I was more stressed out during Regionals and Super Regionals because we just wanted so badly to make it to the World Series,” Lopez said. “Once we got to the World Series, we’re like, ‘Okay, we’re here, so now we’re more relaxed,’ and we just kept going.”
This calm composure was key in the battle for the national title. Redlands faced off with Trine, a team who was sitting on a 41-7 record.
Trine jumped out early in the game, exploding for four runs in the first inning. The Redlands crawled back in the next few innings but were still down 6-3 heading into the final two frames.
“Honestly, that’s not the first time we’ve fallen behind like that,” Lopez said. “We never give up, we just keep going. We know that we’re going to pull through, gather some hits any way possible, and that’s exactly what we did.”
Lopez herself was responsible for part of her team’s success in their title chase. The junior was 2-for-3 with one run scored and one RBI.
This fight from behind was a pressure the Redlands team was used to, as they had comeback victories in all five of their World Series wins. Looking ahead to next year, Ortega wants his team to stay in the fight.
“There’s a bullseye on the back, obviously, but I think it’s going to be more of continuing to respect that bullseye, train at a high level and continue to establish what we’ve created so far,” Ortega said.
Lopez said she uses a lot of skills she learned growing up on the Long Beach softball scene at Redlands now. From playing with a target on her back to knowing the power of a tight team camaraderie, the junior is always tapping back into her roots.
Aside from the lessons learned while at Millikan, Lopez credits her father for a lot of the success she’s had in her career. Growing up on the diamond, Lopez’s dad would make her practice at every position on the infield so she could be ready for any gametime opportunity.
That gametime opportunity came and Lopez stepped up to the challenge.
This season, Redlands lost one of their heavy hitters in junior Leila Jackson, a returning All-Conference player. Losing Jackson was a big loss for the team, Ortega said, but Lopez stepped in and helped carry the team to their national championship.
“An injury like that typically is a big blow, but when you have players like Natalie who are willing to play wherever, hit wherever in the lineup, still show up and show out the way she did, it’s so important,” Ortega said.
For Lopez, this transition was easy thanks to her youth years spent training with her dad. This scenario also reminded her of a similar situation she found herself in at Millikan.
In her junior season as a Ram, second baseman Madison “Shorty” Wright went down with an injury, leaving a starting spot vacant for Millikan.
“I was just a player that would practice at every single position just so that I was ready to go,” Lopez said. “So then I ended up stepping up and going to second base for Shorty and I think carrying that into college too was very helpful.”
With a big senior class graduating from the team this year, there will be more of these vacancies on the Redlands squad next year. Although a big recruit class is coming in, there is no doubt that there will be more opportunities for Lopez to continue stepping up and chasing championships.
