Carnegie Schools of Riverside softball coach John Perez talks to his team after a game from last season. Photo: SoCalSidelines.com.
Carnegie Schools of Riverside already has set a reported state softball record for most runs scored for one season and one of its players also is on track to score 70 runs or more, which would be another record. But there are other players and schools in recent seasons that also have been racking up monstrous scoring totals. Running up the score concerns are only natural and on Friday it wasn’t possible for Carnegie to keep scoring due to a forfeit win.
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It’s a perfect storm of conditions for state records to fall. A small school trying to build a program that will be competitive at the highest levels is still playing a league schedule and other games against much weaker small school competition. That’s what’s happening at the close of the regular season for Carnegie Schools of Riverside, which already has set the reported state record for most runs scored for one season.
This is the second year of the Carnegie program being under the tutelage of head coach John Perez, who previously built one of the best programs in the nation at Santiago of Corona. Perez, who had been at Santiago from 1996 to 2016 with State Teams of the Year in 2011 and 2013, began the season with 511 all-time wins.
Last year’s team at Carnegie ended 20-1 with a 17-0 loss to Village Christian of Sun Valley in the CIF Southern Section Division 7 quarterfinals. The Wolverines still scored 382 runs in those games, which ranks in the top 10 on the all-time reported state list.
It’s proven to be just a warm-up for 2018.
No one graduated off of the 2017 squad and the team was only moved up from Division 7 to Division 6 by the CIFSS office due to its established competitive equity criteria.
The Wolverines won their first two games, which was a doubleheader against Saddleback of Santa Ana, 22-0 and 28-1. Before getting into its Arrowhead League schedule, Carnegie did play several other much larger schools, such as Palmdale (won 16-0), Moreno Valley (won 17-3) and Kaiser of Fontana (won 9-4). It’s been in those league games, though, in which the competitive differences have been vast. Some of the routs have been 40-0 over California Lutheran of Wildomar and 30-0 over La Sierra Academy of Riverside.
After a 28-0 romp past California School for the Deaf (Riverside) earlier last week, the Wolverines already had surpassed the previous reported state record for runs scored in a season of 430 set in 1992 by Holtville of the CIF San Diego Section. It’s doubtful they’ll score again until the playoffs.
Last Friday’s scheduled game, according to one of the team’s assistant coaches, was called off by the opposing team, Upland Christian Academy, when it decided to take a forfeit. This week’s scheduled games against California Lutheran and Mayfield of Pasadena may turn out to be similar outcomes. Some leagues may list a score such as 7-0 or 1-0 or 2-0 with a forfeit win, but for record keeping the only runs that count are those in an actual game.
When the last printed Cal-Hi Sports state record book was done in 2009, there was only one team that had ever scored more than 400 runs in a season. That total now shows five that have done it and all five would be classified as small schools.
Individually for most runs scored in a season, there were four girls back before the start of the 2009 season that had scored 60 runs or more and two of those — Digna Campos and Alison Peckham — were both on that 1992 team at Holtville. That list now has 18 on it. Two are from Carnegie and there’s even another girl not from Carnegie who has 60 runs this season and counting.
Junior Hailee Riboni is the leader of the team at Carnegie. She heads into the second week of May with a .723 average, 61 runs scored, 60 hits, 50 RBI plus a 9-0 pitching record with a 0.86 ERA. Riboni, who scored 63 runs last season with 61 hits and 67 RBI, needs to get past 67 runs scored and she’d set a new single-season state record. That record was set in 2014 by Melissa Lalisan from Del Mar of San Jose.
One of Hailee’s teammates from last season, freshman Kiki Calderon, also put her name into the state record book by scoring 61 times.
Lalisan’s record also could be surpassed, as well as the one that Riboni might eventually set, by East Nicolaus sophomore Riley Grigsby. She’s been impressive all season for the CIF Northern Section Spartans and is shown on the MaxPreps leaderboard with 61 runs (the same total as Riboni). Grigsby also is going to likely get games in during the upcoming week while it’s uncertain that Riboni will be able to play at all.
Here is a look at updated Cal-Hi Sports state record totals for those two categories:
Most Runs By Team (Season)
434 – Riverside Carnegie, 2018 (21) (Current)
430 – Holtville, 1992 (32)
418 – Taft, 2014 (38)
415 – Pomona Catholic, 2012 (33)
412 – Los Angeles King-Drew, 2014 (23)
390 – Templeton, 1994 (29)
388 – Bermuda Dunes Desert Christian, 1989
382 – Riverside Carnegie, 2017 (21)
Most Runs By Player (Season)
67 – Melissa Lalisan, San Jose Del Mar, 2014 (23) Jr.
66 – Digna Campos, Holtville, 1992 (32)
66 – Alison Peckham, Holtville, 1992 (32)
65 – Grace Hosman, Tracy Millenium, 2016 (28) Fr.
65 – Maricela Romero, Bakersfield North, 2016 (33) Jr.
65 – Noemi Farfan, Chula Vista Calvin Christian Academy, 2016 (24) Fr.
64 – Cheyenne Cordes, Fairfield Rodriguez, 2011 (31)
64 – Mary Galindo, Victorville Victor Valley Christian, 2009 (28)
64 – Imani Johnson, Los Angeles King-Drew, 2014 (26) Jr.
64 – Silent Rain Espinoza, El Cajon Christian, 2017 (36)
63 – Shelby Cromer, Stockton Lincoln, 1993 (39)
63 – Brianna Tautalafua, Carson, 2014 (32) Jr.
63 – Bradi Kooyman, Lodi Jim Elliot Christian, 2016 (26) Jr.
63 – Hailee Riboni, Riverside Carnegie, 2017 (21) Soph.
61 – Kiki Calderon, Riverside Carnegie, 2017 (21) Fr.
61 – Hailee Riboni, Riverside Carnegie, 2018 (21) Jr. (Current)
61 – Riley Grigsby, East Nicolaus, 2018 Soph. (Current)
60 – Dee Dee Woods, Fairfield, 1994 (46)
Mark Tennis is the editor and publisher of Cal-Hi Sports. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
