The game of the year is now set in the American Samoa High School Athletic Association (ASHSAA) Girls Softball League. The 2012-2013 ASHSAA Girls Softball Championship Game will be played between the #1 seeded Tafuna Warriors and the #2 seeded Fa’asao Marist Cougars, who are also the defending champions.

Despite coming into the playoffs with only one loss under their belt, the Warriors were not as dominate in the second half of the regular season, just barely earning some wins in very close games to the rest of the field, who were able to improve as the season progressed.

In fact, the only loss the Warriors suffered was at the hands of the Cougars, which was late in the first half of the regular season. The Cougars will be coming into this Championship game with only two losses, one to the Warriors and one to the Leone Lions, who jumped off to a quick start at the beginning of the season, but faltered at the end, allowing the Cougars to pass them on their way to today’s game.

In last Saturday’s playoff game, the Cougars defeated the #3 seeded Lions 9-8 in a classic battle that saw the Lions drop their forth game in row and unfortunately that fourth loss for the Lions was in the playoffs. In the other playoff game this past Monday, the Warriors took care of business by defeating the #4 seeded team, the Samoana Sharks by a score of 16-7.

Today’s game will be the third time in as many years that these two teams have met in the ASHSAA Girls Softball Championships.

 In 2010-2011, the #1 seeded Cougars were undefeated going into the the Championship game with the Warriors being seeded #2. In the end of that game, the Warriors were able to take the win by defeating the Cougars in a score of 7-5.

In 2011-2012, these two teams met once again in the finals, with the Cougars downing the Warriors 10-9. The Cougars also had the ASHSAA Championship in the 2009-2010 season.

Today’s game has a starting time of 4:00 p.m. and will be played at the Tony Solaita Baseball Field. “I invite the public out to today’s final. It should be a great game. All of the teams this year have improved so much since the start of the season. I wish to thank everyone who supported and helped out this year in helping promote ASHSAA softball—Thank you,” said ASHSAA Girls Softball Coordinator, Clayton ‘Boom’ Mahuka.