Two of this week’s honorees are Jurian Dixon from St. Augustine of San Diego and Lauren Green of Castro Valley. Photos: The Sports Crew / YouTube.com & @rich4green / Twitter.com.
For this week, we not only include last week’s performances but we also include MLK Day action since a lot of events started on the weekend and carried over to Monday. Our Southern California stops are in the Inland Empire city of Etiwanda and San Diego, while for Northern California we visit Sacramento and Castro Valley.
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Note: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. We also remind readers that for all of our Player of the Week features in all sports, girls and boys, we use it to uncover hidden talent that doesn’t always make the limelight, and for tracking entries into the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.
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Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Lauren Green (Castro Valley) Sr.
For our Northern California Girls Basketball Player of the Week we head south from Oakland on the 580 Freeway to find our award winner. We almost visited Castro Valley last week to honor Green, and we could have picked her earlier in the season, but she had another outstanding performance which gave us the opportunity to make her this week’s NorCal girls winner.
Last week, in a 63-45 victory over Encinal of Alameda, and despite being a 5-foot-8 combo guard, Green had a huge double-double with 31 points and 17 rebounds plus six assists and eight steals.
It was the third straight game in which Lauren has gone for 30 or more points. When we almost picked her last week Green had a double-double 30 points (four 3-pointers) and 11 rebounds with five assists and eight steals in a 68-35 win over nearby Arroyo of San Leandro. That followed a 31-point, 14-rebound, eight-steal performance in a 57-49 loss to Redwood City Sequoia in which she nailed six shots from beyond the arc.
So far this season for the 8-6 Trojans, entering this week, Green was averaging 26.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 6.5 steals and 2.6 assists per game. She also had made 34 three-pointers, had 30 or more points eight times, and had eight double-doubles.
Leo Wagner fired in an average of 26.3 ppg in three games last week for West Campus of Sacramento. Photo: Hudl.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Leo Wagner (West Campus, Sacramento) Sr.
Our search for the Northern California Boys Basketball Player of the Week takes us south of the state capitol building about a mile east of Highway 99.
At West Campus, we find a player that got some props on social media from Sacramento Bee veteran prep sports scribe Joe Davidson, and when we saw what he Tweeted about Wagner and he did recently, and the fact he holds an assortment of school career records, we realized we had found our honoree.
Wagner started last week with a huge double-double 28 points and 18 rebounds with eight assists and seven steals in a 73-27 win over crosstown Mira Loma. The 6-foot-5 senior forward followed that up with a monster double-double 31 points and 25 rebounds with two assists, three steals and three blocks, and the Warriors needed every bit of his production to pull out a 65-64 victory over Sacramento Natomas. West Campus couldn’t ride Leo’s shoulders to victory in the third game of the week, a 57-46 loss to Greater Sacramento League rival Johnson of Sacramento, but he had his usual double-double after finishing with 20 points and 13 rebounds.
The overall best performance for Wagner came in a heartbreaking 67-65 loss to Bradshaw Christian when he went for 41 points and 18 rebounds. West Campus may only be 7-9 on the season but Wagner had 16 double-doubles and was averaging 23.6 points starting this week. He also was at 16.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.7 blocks and 2.1 steals per game.
We had to go to press before we could confirm what school records Wagner holds but what we can tell you is going into a game at home on Wednesday against Cordova of Rancho Cordova, Leo has 1,275 career points and 693 career rebounds. Including a freshman season when he saw limited action that translates into 16.5 points and 9.6 rebounds per game for his career.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week
Jurian Dixon (St. Augustine, San Diego) Jr.
To find our Southern California Boys Basketball Player of the Week we head to San Diego and land just a little over a mile due east of the world famous San Diego Zoo. At St. Augustine, we find a 6-foot-5 junior wing who is starting to show up on the recruiting sites, and in fact is considered one of the top 20 recruits from the junior class in California.
In his last three games, for which he’s being honored, Dixon has been firing on all cylinders. Last week, in an 81-60 victory over San Diego High, he had 24 points, eight assists, five rebounds and three steals. Jurian followed that up with 30 points and seven rebounds in a 57-49 win over crosstown Mission Bay, and finally, on Saturday in a 74-49 win against La Jolla Country Day, Dixon went for 31 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Dixon is only shown as having played six games this season for the 13-6 Saints, with one game in November and five over the last few weeks (due to injury or illness but we don’t know for sure). In those six games, though, Saints are 5-1 and he’s gone for 30 or more points four times. For the six games Dixon was averaging 28.5 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.5 steals per game.
As a freshman, Jurian was one of the top Class of 2023 players at San Ysidro where he played with national phenom Mikey Williams (the State & National Freshman of the Year). Williams moved on to North Carolina after that season while Dixon headed up the coast a few miles to St. Augustine.
Etiwanda’s Destiny Agubata is one of the top sophomores in the state even though her sophomore teammate is often higher in national player rankings. Photo: Etiwanda HS
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Destiny Augubata (Etiwanda) Soph.
We don’t often include one of the top players on the top team in the state and one of the top teams in the nation in this feature, but this week we decided to head out to the Inland Empire to honor a girl from Etiwanda’s high-flying Eagles.
We also just wanted to write this sentence: It was our destiny that Etiwanda is our destination to honor Destiny.
In fact, Augubata was an easy choice as a First Team All State Freshman selection last spring and even was in consideration as a finalist for State Freshman of the Year. The problem is the 6-foot sophomore wing is a teammate of Kennedy Smith, and Smith snared the top honors for freshmen last season.
Last week, in a 69-34 victory over No. 12 Windward of Los Angeles, and in a game teammate Daisia Mitchell went down with a dislocated knee cap, Augubata had for her what would be an under average performance but a career game for some players after she went for a double-double 10 points and 11 rebounds with five steals. Then, on MLK Day against Orangewood Academy on the road in Garden Grove, Destiny had a huge double-double 26 points and 16 rebounds with two steals as Etiwanda improved to 15-0 with an 83-47 victory.
On the season, Augubata has been second on the team to Smith in scoring and rebounding at approximately 15 points and eight rebounds per game, plus around four assists and steals, and in a lot of lopsided games she and the other starters barely play if at all.
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
