Two of this week’s honorees are Kira McKechnie of Sacramento Christian Brothers and Kaleb Fossum from El Toro of Lake Forest. Photos: cbtalon.com & Twitter.com.
To nominate a player for next week, email markjtennis@gmail.com by Monday at 12 noon and be sure to include a photo that we can use (which means it’s not from the local newspaper or from another web site). Please feel free to call at 209-463-9050 as well both for nominations or to see if your business or small company would like to become a sponsor for this weekly content.
Note: For purposes of this feature, we are considering the CIF Central Section to be in the north.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Jeffrey Ahern (Anderson) Sr.
This four-year varsity performer pitched a four-hitter with 10 strikeouts and hit a home run in a 2-1 triumph by the Cubs last week against Lassen of Susanville.
Heading into this week, Ahern was batting .463 with five homers and 13 RBI to go with a 4-1 record on the mound and a 1.54 ERA. For his career, he has a batting average above .400 and as a junior he had a 0.00 ERA in 22 innings pitched.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Kaleb Fossum (El Toro, Lake Forest) Sr.
While he’s more known for his play on the football field, Fossum showed he can make an impact when on the mound during a baseball game when he allowed just one walk and struck out three in pitching a no-hitter during a 10-0 win over Palm Springs last week at the Anaheim Lions Tournament.
Recently committed to Washington State as a preferred walk-on, Fossum was the South Coast League MVP in football after a season that saw him catch 75 passes for 955 yards and also excel at returning kicks. Fossum also was named winner of El Toro’s Jeff Stenstrom Award, which is considered the school’s highest honor and is named for a former athlete at the school who died suddenly as a freshman at Cornell University in 1995.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Softball Player of the Week
Kira McKechnie (Christian Brothers, Sacramento) Sr.
It didn’t take long for McKechnie to go from basketball standout to softball star for the Falcons. In two games last week, she went 3-for-5 with four RBIs and then went 3-for-4 with a homer, double and six RBIs in wins of 16-3 against McClatchy of Sacramento and 13-3 over Armijo of Fairfield.
Although not known for pitching, McKechnie does go into the circle for her team and had 11 strikeouts in the win against McClatchy.
The 6-foot senior averaged a double-double for the Falcons’ basketball team with 13.5 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. She started this week in softball with a .458 batting average with five homers and 28 RBI.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Softball Player of the Week
Sierra Altmeyer (Patrick Henry, San Diego) Sr.
A Cal-Hi Sports All-State Underclass pick from last season as a slick fielding infielder with a .481 batting average, Altmeyer was the MVP for the Patriots when they won last weekend’s Falcon Fiesta tourney with a 21-2 win over league rival Scripps Ranch.
With the win, Henry improved to 12-1 and was able to move up to No. 7 in this week’s State Top 20.
Altmeyer was one of several Patriots who shined at the plate in the final game as she went 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Earlier in the tourney, she went 2-for-4 with four RBIs in a victory over Bonita Vista of Chula Vista, which is another of the top-ranked teams in San Diego.
Headed to UC Santa Barbara, another big outing for Altmeyer this season came against defending section champion Cathedral Catholic of San Diego in a 5-3 win. In that game, she had an RBI single and a two-run homer.
Paul Muyskens contributed to this post. Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
