Two of this week’s honorees are Morganne Flores of Mater Dei and Morgan Monashefsky from San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral. Photos: OCSidelines.com & courtesy school.
Playing the name game, we’ve got a boy and girl this week with almost the same first name as Morgan Monashefsky of S.F. Sacred Heart and Morganne Flores of Santa Ana Mater Dei are among this week’s honorees. Our other two are from El Cajon and Lodi.
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 Southern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Bailey Link (Foothills Christian, El Cajon) Soph.
This sophomore did a little bit of everything during a 4-2 win over Mountain Empire as he led off the game with a double and ended up 3-for-3 with two runs and an RBI but that was only part of the story.
“Link is the one who makes our engine run.,” Knights’ head coach Dave Lewis told East County Sports. “He made two diving stops at shortstop today. He came in to pitch with two runners on in the seventh inning and struck out two guys.”
Earlier last week, Link also went 4-for-4 with three runs scored, including a triple, in a 20-5 romp past San Diego Jewish Academy. And then already this week, in a game against Southwest of San Diego, Link went 4-for-6 with three RBI.
After his first 19 games, Link had a .615 batting average.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Morgan Monashefsky (Sacred Heart Cathedral, S.F.) Sr.
Throwing a perfect game in the famed West Catholic Athletic League even if it isn’t against one of the heavyweights like St. Francis, Mitty, Serra or Valley Christian is still not like throwing one in regular high school competition.
Monashefsky did exactly that last week to lead Sacred Heart Cathedral past Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco 6-0. According to longtime SHC head coach Steve Franceschi, it is the first perfect game in school history and that’s also saying something. The Irish actually go back more than 100 years and have two MLB Hall of Famers in Harry Heilmann and Joe Cronin.
“He was awesome,” said Franceschi, who had a perfect game himself while pitching in college for the University of Pacific in Stockton. “He got into a great rhythm and had it all working. His accuracy was just about perfect and he had them off balance the entire game. We gave him the game ball and I told him this was one that he would never forget.”
Monashefsky needed just 77 pitches to notch his seven-inning perfect game with 56 that were for strikes. He struck out seven and had 14 first-pitch strikes to the 21 batters he faced.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Softball Player of the Week
Morganne Flores (Mater Dei, Santa Ana) Sr.
The Monarchs’ standout is making the most of her final season before heading to play with the Washington Huskies.
Flores went 3 for 4 with a triple, two home runs and five runs batted in during a 8-0 win last week over Rosary of Fullerton. While it was her first multi-home run game of the season she did have a game earlier this season that saw her hit one home run and drive in six runs during a 20-3 win over Pomona Catholic of Pomona.
Before the season, she was part of a travel ball team that won the 2014 PGF 18U Premier National Championship.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Softball Player of the Week
Bradi Kooyman (Jim Elliot Christian, Lodi) Jr.
It may be a small school in Lodi but long-time head coach Mike Pontius has had some big-time players come through his program and this Missouri-committed junior looks to be another one.
Kooyman went 13 for 14 last week and is now hitting .712 on the season. In the final two games of the week she went 4 for 4 with two triples and six runs batted in during a 23-4 win over Stone Ridge Christian of Modesto and then went a perfect 5 for 5 with two doubles, two triples and four runs batted in during an 11-6 win over Big Valley Christian of Modesto.
Earlier this season she had a game that saw her hit three triples, which will get her listed in our state record book, and she has now hit 13 triples this season. Kooyman only needs two more to tie the reported Cal-Hi Sports state record of 15 set in 2004 by Taylor Schlopy from Oaks Christian of Westlake Village.
Paul Muyskens is the Stockton office assistant editor for CalHiSports.com. 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
