SoCal/NorCal Players of the Week

Two of this week’s SoCal/NorCal Players of the Week are Tucker Bougie from Tamalpais of Mill Valley and Laila Alves of Lincoln. Photos: Cal Baseball on Twitter / goldcountrymedia.com.

Week four of our Baseball and Softball Players of the Week feature takes us to the Orange County cities of Mission Viejo and Huntington Beach for the SoCal honorees. It’s also to Mill Valley and the metro Sacramento town of Lincoln for the Northern California award winners. Also, for this week’s winners, we looked at the overall body of work for a couple of the players chosen for honors due to spring break schedules and games already played this week.

We hope you enjoy this free story on Cal-Hi Sports.com. For our State Top 35 rankings packages for the rest of the baseball-softball seasons plus State Stat Stars of the Week, state record updates and special features, please check out our Gold Club membership today. If you’re not a member, CLICK HERE.

Note: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com. We are picking the winners on Tuesday nights until spring football games are over.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Baseball Player of the Week

Tucker Bougie
(Tamalpais, Mill Valley) Sr.

Views of the slopes of majestic and magical Mt. Tamalpais grace the Tamalpais campus that’s not far north of the Golden Gate Bridge, however we’re not visiting Mill Valley to do sightseeing but to honor this week’s Northern California Baseball Player of the Week.

We quite often like to give geography lessons and rhyme the kids’ names in this feature, and we started this one with some geographic distinctions, but for this one we’re going to give our readers a little bit of a history lesson as well.

Turn the clock back to 1934 when Tamalpais was already in its 27th year after having opened in 1908. That year one of the greatest multi-sport athletes in the history of Northern California, Sam Chapman, graduated with letters in football, baseball, basketball and track. From there Chapman went on to the University of California where he starred in football, was a member of the 1938 Cal Rose Bowl champions (the last time Cal won the Rose Bowl), was an All-American in football, and in 1984 was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. Chapman was also an All-American at Cal in baseball, a rarity even back then. Upon graduation he was offered a contract with the Washington Redskins (now the Washington Football Team), but turned it down to play pro baseball. Chapman enjoyed a productive 11-year Major League career, mostly with the Philadelphia Athletics (now the Oakland Athletics), that would have been longer had he not missed three seasons while serving as a pilot and flight instructor during World War II.

Bougie, a right-handed pitcher who can also play shortstop and third base, is far from being a Sam Chapman. However, in his own right, the Red-tailed Hawks’ senior is dominating the Marin County Athletic League, and is a big part of Tam’s 6-0 start. And he does have one thing in common with Chapman, Tucker will be playing as a Golden Bear at Cal for the next baseball season.

Now, to get back to why Bougie is being honored.

For Tucker, it’s for his overall body of work and includes a game played this week, an 11-1 victory in five innings over San Marin of Novato in which Tucker tossed a two-hitter with nine strikeouts. At the plate, Bougie was on base all four times, with an RBI single, two walks, he was hit by a pitch, stole a base and scored a run.

Two weeks ago, before spring break, in an 8-1 victory over Drake of San Anselmo, Tucker hit two long taters and had three RBI and three runs scored. He also pitched a complete game 4-hitter with eight strikeouts.

On the season from the mound, Bougie was 3-0 with a save in four appearances (as of Wednesday April 14), and had a 0.00 ERA with 28 strikeouts in 17.2 innings. As a batter, Tucker was hitting an even .600 with the two home runs, five RBI and 12 runs scored.

Mason Molina of Trabuco Hills goes through letter of intent paperwork from Texas Tech University. Photo: Dyan Molina / ocsportszone.com.

Mason Molina
(Trabuco Hills, Mission Viejo) Sr.

South Orange County and the foothills of Santiago Peak is our destination for the Southern California Baseball Player of the Week and it’s there we find a future member of the Texas Tech Red Raiders who’s currently a left-handed pitcher that’s already pillaging opponents as a hurler for the Mustangs before heading off to Lubbock this fall.

We realize that by the time your eyes peruse this feature Trabuco Hills will already have completed its Wednesday date with Kennedy of La Palma, but we’re honoring Molina for what he has already done.

Last week, in a 2-0 victory over Newport Harbor of Newport Beach, the 6-foot-1, 210-pound fireballer fired a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts.

Two weeks ago, and in a 10-4 victory over cross-town arch rival Mission Viejo, Mason went three innings and only gave up one hit while fanning five.

Three weeks ago, he went 5.1 innings in a 6-1 victory over Placentia El Dorado in the Ryan Lemmon tournament and gave up 1 hit with eight strikeouts.

In a season-opening 2-0 victory over Yorba Linda, Molina went five innings and gave up two hits with nine strikeouts.

By our account, and going off the @trabucobaseball Twitter handle, Molina has only given up a measly four hits in his four outings and 20.1 innings pitched, and he’s struck out a whopping 38 batters.

Molina hits as well. Three weeks ago in an offensive affair that Trabuco Hills lost 18-15 to Yorba Linda, he was 3 for 5 with two doubles and two RBI. On Monday of this week in a 10-1 victory in the Newport Elks tournament over Santa Ana Segerstrom, the big fella had a two-run double.

With outings like that, Texas Tech fans and boosters can hardly wait to see Molina on the mound.

Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Softball Player of the Week

Devyn Greer
(Huntington Beach) Sr.

For our Southern California Softball Player of the Week stop, we land in a city known by locals in the Southland simply as “The Beach.”

Early season hitting and pitching star Devyn Greer of Huntington Beach signs her letter of intent with the University of Iowa. Photo: Twitter.com.

She didn’t pitch but Greer started last week by going 3 for 4 with a double and a run scored and a stolen base in a 6-0 victory over crosstown rival Ocean View. On Friday, Devyn took the circle against nearby Fountain Valley and gave up two hits and no runs in four innings and struck out seven in a 7-2 victory. At the plate she was 3 for 4 once again but this time she blasted a home run, drove in three runs, scored twice and stole a base.

On Monday of this week, Greer went 2 for 2 after belting her third home run this season. She also doubled and finished with four RBI and a run scored.

On the season, and at the plate, the Iowa Hawkeyes-bound Greer already displays the eyesight of a hawk. She’s hitting .696 with the three round-trippers, two triples, three doubles, 18 RBI, seven runs scored, three stolen bases, and she almost always makes contact having only struck out twice and walked twice in 25 plate appearances. Her 1.396 slugging percentage is pretty formidable. The 18 RBI is tied for second in the CIF Southern Section and a Top 20 mark for reported stats in the state.

From the circle, Greer was 2-0 with an ERA of 0.00 in five appearances and 19.2 innings pitched. She’d given up 13 hits, none for extra bases, and she’s only walked two while striking out 35 batters. Opposing hitters were hitting a paltry .186 against Devyn.

It’s a week away, and Huntington Beach has three games until the two meet, including a matchup with state No. 2 Norco, but the Oilers play in the same Sunset Surf League as state No. 1 Los Alamitos and the two meet next Thursday. We’ll be watching to see what Greer and her teammates do against the top two teams in the state.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Softball Player of the Week

Laila Alves
(Lincoln) Sr.

For the second-straight week our Northern California Softball player of the Week is from a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section school known as Lincoln, only on this trip we land in Placer County east-northeast of Sacramento, and not in Stockton where last week’s honoree is from.

The one thing Alves does share with last week’s winner besides the name of her school, is what she can do at the plate for the 8-4 Fighting Zebras.

Last week, in a 23-9 blowout of Wheatland, Laila launched three home runs, drove in four runs, and she scored three times. On Monday of this week Alves hit two home runs and that means in two consecutive games she hit five home runs combined. On Tuesday of this week the Fighting Zebras’ senior also played. She didn’t hit a home run but did have a single that drove in two runs in a 16-0 blasting of Auburn Placer.

So far this season for the 8-4 Fighting Zebras, prior to a game on Thursday, Alves was hitting .656 with seven home runs, six doubles, 16 RBI, and she’d only struck out once in 39 plate appearances and had an astronomical 1.500 slugging percentage.

On defense and playing mostly as the Lincoln catcher, the signer with Syracuse University in New York also had only committed one error in 24 chances.

On a very important and final note, Laila isn’t quite the leader in the state or even the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section in home runs, but her seven round trippers is second in the section behind the eight of sophomore Jaylee Ojo of Sacramento Sheldon, and tied with one other girl for second in the state behind Ojo as well.

When Laila gets to Syracuse, she should look up football recruit Justin Lamson, who is from nearby Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills).

Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend