El Salvador led 10-8 in the bottom of the seventh inning at the Women’s Softball Central American Games finals as the Guatemalan batter faced her second strike. She fouled off the third pitch, and the stands were stiff with tension. Home fans held their breath in hopes of a hit, while the El Salvadorean fans, decked out in bright blue, chanted eagerly, “Ponche! Ponche! Ponche!” meaning “Strikeout! Strikeout! Strikeout!” From third base, Emma Guzman (12) anticipated her teammate’s fourth pitch.
“There was just a lot of noise, and I took one deep breath,” Guzman said. “And then the pitch came.”
Suddenly, the stands erupted in cheers. At the biggest game of her life, Guzman couldn’t believe it.
“My second baseman goes and dives, catches it, and then I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” she said. “I throw my glove down. She runs straight towards me. I hug her, and I’m just like, ‘Oh my God. We won! We won! We won! We won!”
This annual tournament, held in Guatemala City, Guatemala, hosted six teams of the top women’s softball players in Central America, Oct. 24-28. Guzman said that representing El Salvador, the country where her dad grew up, was a chance to prove herself on a global stage and a stepping stone to competing in the 2028 LA Summer Olympics. Her gold medal is proof of her success.
“I’ve always been used to playing softball here in the United States, and it gives me more of a bigger purpose to really represent,” she said. “I represent myself, but it’s like I’m also representing a bigger name. I’m representing my people. I’m representing my family and my last name. I’m representing everyone by playing a sport I love, so that was pretty awesome.”
El Salvador started the tournament strong on day one, shutting out Honduras, 10-0. For Guzman, who hit singles in the first and second innings, this matchup was an emotional reminder of her mom.
“I was really nervous, especially because my first game was Honduras,” Guzman said. “And I remember being very emotional because my mom’s from Honduras and she wasn’t with me. She tries her best to go to my games, but it’s always been my dad [at my games, and I really value my mom watching too. So when we first went out there, I was a little emotional. When I heard the Honduran national anthem, I started crying a bit, just because I missed my mom. But then I got my first hit, and I felt fine during that game.”
El Salvador then dominated against Belize, 17-1, closing out the first day. The second day, however, Guzman and her team were up against the hosting team, Guatemala. Nicknamed “Guate” by the players, the Guatemalan team is known to be a top contender in the tournament and posed a threat to El Salvador’s two-game winning streak.
“That game was heated,” Guzman said. “I thought I’d been on a big stage before. I’ve never been on a stage like that. It was like an awakening to us. And that game was a dogfight.”
The teams were neck and neck, tying 6-6 in the seventh inning. Guzman went two-for-four, getting an RBI in the fourth inning.
“That game was crazy,” Guzman said. “It was like, if Guate scored, then we scored even more. We got ahead of them, then Guate got in front of us. That was just a rude awakening because, personally, in the States, I’ve never been in a game where the people are as passionate as they were there. Little did I know that [the United States games] were nothing in comparison. We won that game, and I played flawlessly at both second and shortstop, didn’t let anything get past me.”
In the bottom of the eighth inning, El Salvador scored the final run and won the last game of the second day. Early the next morning, the team beat Nicaragua, 5-3, which set them against Panama to start day four. Guzman kicked off the game with a first-inning home run. However, El Salvador lost its lead in the fourth inning, losing the game, 4-3.
To Guzman, losing to Panama was disappointing, but the team rested in preparation for the final games of day five. In the first of the three, El Salvador lost 8-7 to Guatemala in eight innings. In the second game, they faced Panama again, but this time, El Salvador won, 12-5, with Guzman getting two hits and two RBIs.
Now, Guzman would play in the finals. Her arm, injured from overuse, was worsened by the game against Panama, but the victory left Guzman exhilarated. Still, she knew that she needed to focus. The fight for gold against Guatemala would soon begin.
“That was the most nervous I’ve ever felt, but I was also hyped—like I was running into poles, hitting my head on a pole,” Guzman said. “Before that game, I had to get in my zone so the nerves wouldn’t hit me. So after our Panama game, I went out to the right field after we rested up a little bit, and I just laid on the grass and just soaked it all in. I was like, ‘This is when I go home. I’m getting that gold.’ I started praying to God. I was just like, ‘Please Lord, it’s in your hands.’ My arm was shot, but I had to push through it. I had to be that dog.”
But when the game started, things didn’t go according to plan. El Salvador’s first batter was hit by the pitch and scored. Then the third batter grounded out, and one runner was on third, ready to run home. It was Guzman’s turn. At bat, she had a 2-2 count.
“I’m in the fourth spot, so it’s a big spot, like we have a chance to score,” Guzman said. “I’m just like, ‘Alright, this one’s it.’ I see the infield shifting to my left, so I knew it was coming inside, so I was ready for the ball. But then the pitcher pegs me in the arm. I get mad and I throw my bat, and the whole stands just start booing.”
Guzman touched first base and left for the athletic trainer to treat her arm. When she returned to the field to talk to her coach, Guzman was met with an unwelcome riot from the Guatemalan fans.
“The whole crowd started booing,” Guzman said. “Like, ‘Boo boo boo’ and started calling me names in Spanish. I couldn’t understand everything they were saying, and then, being in the moment, I was telling them, ‘Keep it up. Keep it up.’ Then, every single at-bat that I went up, they booed me. But it gave me fuel because that noise, even though I could barely understand them, just gave me fuel to do even better and shut them up.”
When Guzman returned to bat at the top of the third inning, she hit an opposite-field single. By the top of the fifth, El Salvador was up 10-4. But, Guzman said, it wasn’t easy.
“That game was a dogfight and everyone had that grit, and we’re like, ‘We’re getting this win,’” she said. “But then Guate started chipping away, and then before you knew it, it was 10-8.”
The scores were nearing. In the bottom of the seventh inning, El Salvador was still two runs ahead. Guzman was confident her team could win the gold.
“We’re just like, ‘Alright, just three outs, all we need are three outs,” she said. “‘We’ve just got to be consistent. I don’t care if you make an error, just keep it in front of you.’ The last thing we needed was for them to get hits and then to get momentum. Their stands think they have the win, but in my mind, I was like, ‘We’ve got it.’ I had a lot of faith in us, and they were saying, ‘Si se puede. Si se puede,’ like, ‘Yes we can. Yes we can,’ and I was like, ‘No, we’re winning this.’”
The first batter of the inning from Guatemala struck out looking. The second grounded out. The third hit a bloop single. But then the fourth batter, the top of the lineup, went to bat.
“I tell my pitcher, ‘Tranquila,’ like, ‘We got it, chill out,’ and ‘Vamos, vamos,’ like ‘Here we go,’” Guzman said. “Guate’s top of the lineup was the best.”
The hitter’s count was 1-2, and she hit the fourth pitch into the 3-4 hole. Guzman’s teammate dove. She caught the blooper.
With that final out, the game was over. El Salvador and Guzman had won the gold.
“I felt like I was dreaming, and then I went to go hug my dad and I started crying,” Guzman said. “I was just like, ‘We did it! We did it!’ And then that’s when he was like, ‘I’m so proud of you.’”
Guzman said that the players’ shared goal and mindset quickly made strangers feel like family, since she had only met the team and begun training only six days prior to the tournament in El Salvador and Guatemala. Guzman was initially scouted for the role in July while playing in Colorado tournaments with her club team. Following the games, the president of the El Salvadoran Olympic Committee invited Guzman to join the adult team, making her the second-youngest of the 17 players.
“It was weird because with other teams, it takes a minute to get used to each other, and even with my club team, we’re still trying to bond with each other and still trying to figure out how we play,” Guzman said. “But with [the El Salvadorean team], I didn’t feel like I was playing with a team. I felt like I was playing with my family. I felt like everyone had this goal of getting the gold, like we’re not stopping until we get the gold.”
Still, Guzman said it was a challenge to adjust to the different training environment abroad.
“Here in America, we have a lot of access to different facilities, a lot of technology, advanced stuff that we have in order to up our game,” she said. “And there, they don’t really have that much equipment, like we had to borrow bats. And their dirt is really different, which is weird to play on, but they do the most they can with what they have. It just kind of made me appreciate what we have here.”
One of the greatest obstacles that Guzman tackled was the language barrier, but she said that her ability to combine English and Spanish, and use her overall knowledge of the game helped her to quickly adapt on the field.
“I feel like it was a challenge just because I’m so used to playing my game in English,” Guzman said. “The hardest part was trying to get what I wanted to say quickly in Spanish so they could understand me, so I would do more Spanglish to them, but I know how I play and I have faith in what I’m playing, and once we did those practices, I got to see the result of our hard work. I’m a very big thinker, especially in this game, so if I’m given like a bunch of pieces, I know that I could put together the bigger picture. So we were kind of making sense of it, even though we had that language barrier. Softball is universal, so the game crosses over.”
Although her high energy and humor largely contributed to the team’s spirit, Guzman said she was also focused on aiming for perfection in her play to make her home community proud.
“I’m a very energetic person, especially because I’m passionate about my game, and so my teammates all saw me as a goof,” she said. “But I also wanted to make a statement to everyone, like, ‘I’m not here to just mess around.’ I’m here to make a statement, here to make my family proud. So, I felt like my role was to drive in the runs, have the energy, be perfect on the field, be basically one of the leaders, even though I haven’t been there for a long time. I had to step it up a little bit and make my dad look good too; I just felt like I had to be a captain and really represent everyone in San Diego and at Westview.”
Guzman said that watching the leadership style of her club and Westview teammates taught her the importance of positive motivation. With over 13 years of experience in the sport behind her, she felt ready to lead with encouragement.
“I’ve played softball since I was 4, and I’ve always played up too; I’ve always played with the older kids, so seeing them take the leadership role and seeing how the game’s supposed to be played in my mind, just really puts into my mind what things should look like,” Guzman said. “I feel like when there’s positive leadership, you’re really helping, like if you’re saying, ‘We need to step it up.’ And I feel like it wasn’t just me being a leader—I feel like it was everyone on the team being a leader, because it took a village, and I felt like my part of that village was being the energy and telling them, ‘We can do this. We’ve got to work as a team.’ Especially being a shortstop, I kind of had to take control of the field.”
After the conclusion of the tournament, Guzman still cherished the memories and triumphs of the five days. Now, in the U.S., she plans to continue playing softball to close her senior year and soon play at the collegiate level after graduation. She’ll be playing with El Salvador again in summer 2026 at the Pan-American Games in the Dominican Republic—the next step to reaching the 2028 Olympics.
“When I first got that gold medal, I looked at it and I didn’t take off that medal for two days straight,” Guzman said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get a crazy experience like that, especially it being my first. Now I’ll just keep training, keep working, and I feel like now I’m a little bit more motivated because I have that title as a gold medalist. I feel like I have more of a purpose in practicing and continuing this awesome journey—and yeah, winning more gold medals.”
