Camila Zepeda wanted to prove she belongs with a major four-year program and Arizona is giving her that opportunity.
The Wildcats have added the former Tucson High and Pima Community College standout as a walk-on to the 2025 roster.
“We are so excited to welcome Camila to the Wildcat Family!” Arizona coach Caitlin Lowe said in a press release. “She was a star player at Pima with NJCAA All-Region and All-American honors. She will add depth to our infield, and we are thrilled to have her as part of our team.”
Zepeda earned 2024 ACCAC Player of the Year and NJCAA Division I second-team All-American honors last season. During her sophomore season in 2024, she led Pima with a .473 batting average, 17 home runs, 21 doubles, 62 RBIs and 14 stolen bases.
Zepeda held a .441 career batting average, hit 24 home runs, 44 doubles, drove in 134 runs, and stole 17 bases in her two seasons with the Aztecs.
She said in an All Sports Tucson Talk podcast in June that she had initial college offers from small Texas schools but wanted to wait until other offers came across.
She has undergone two-hour training regimens three days a week at Jet Sports Training under facility coach Jose Felix with approximately 20 other local high school and college softball standouts. She became reunited with Jet Sports Training owner Bobby Rodriguez, who was her elementary-school softball coach at Safford K-8.
“I wanted to be better since my first year (at Pima in 2023) and it was just like a lot of hard work every day after practice, going to hit on my own,” Zepeda said in the podcast of her All-American season last year. “Even when I got into slumps, I was just working out of it, not really like getting into my head but just finding a way out and then just seeing the results on the field.”
She was not heavily recruited out of Tucson High despite phenomenal numbers — batting .360 (89 at-bats in 29 games) with six home runs, eight doubles and 31 RBIs as a senior in 2022 — and high-level four-year schools did not look her way despite her All-American season at Pima.
Arizona is giving her a golden opportunity, much like Pima did. The Aztecs’ coach is former Flowing Wells, Pima and Arizona player Rebekah Quiroz, who took a similar path as Zepeda is taking now — standout from Tucson who went to high school here and became an All-American at Pima before playing for Mike Candrea at Arizona.
“I’m not the type of person to show off a lot,” Zepeda said of responding to those who doubted her before. “I have just worked on my own. The results showed and then this year was one of my best years.”
Zepeda will join these transfers — infielder Kiki Escobar (Oregon State), catcher/utility player Sydney Stewart (Washington) and pitcher Saya Swain (Iowa State) — along with these incoming freshmen — catcher/utility player Emma Kavanaugh, infielder Jenna Sniffen, infielder Kate Vance, infielder Anyssa Wild of Salpointe and pitcher Sarah Wright this fall.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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