State Football Players of the Week

Two of this week’s honorees are Carson Lamb from Downey of Modesto and Frankie Villalbazo from Bishop Amat of La Puente. Photos: X.com & Hudl.com.

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Notes: We will continue to have flexibility to one of the honorees by calling it Multi-Purpose/Special Teams. Multi-Purpose is already a category for All State honors. For these honors, we also consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.

Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Offensive Player of the Week

Frankie Villalbazo (Bishop Amat, La Puente) Sr.

To find the Southern California Offensive Player of the Week, we head around 20 miles due east of downtown Los Angeles and it’s in the San Gabriel Valley in La Puente at Bishop Amat where we find this week’s award winner, who now adds a statewide honor to his local accolades.

With the selection of Villalbazo, it marks the second straight week one of the State Football Players of the Week from Southern California had a hand in an upset that knocked his team’s opponent out of the Cal-Hi Sports state rankings.

Last week, in a 47-42 barn burner type win over previous Cal-Hi Sports No. 49 Vista Murrieta of Murrieta, Villalbazo, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound senior quarterback, passed for 331 yards and six TDs and he rushed for a seventh score.

Bishop Amat led 28-7 at the half but visiting Vista Murrietta came back in a hurry to tie it at 28-28 midway trough the third quarter. The host Lancers got the lead back on Frankie’s fifth TD pass, extended it to 41-28 on the one rushing TD of Villalbazo, and his sixth TD pass closed out the scoring for Bishop Amat and gave the Lancers a 47-28 at the end of three quarters before visiting Vista Murrieta scored twice in the fourth quarter, the second TD coming with 1:52 left before the Lancers were able to run out the clock.

Reported stats were not updated but according to the X/Twitter handle for Villalbazo he has passed for 739 yards and 11 TDs with only one interception in a 2-1 start that got Bishop Amat a spot on the bubble is the most recent Cal-Hi Sports state rankings.

Veniliate Wolfgramm is the defensive leader at Inglewood and as a junior was the league’s player of the year. Photo: X.com.

Venilaite Wolfgramm III (Inglewood) Sr.

After landing at Los Angeles International Airport, we didn’t have far to go to find this week’s Southern California Defensive Player of the Week because all we had to do is cross the I-405 and less than a mile from LAX at the intersection of Manchester and S. Grevillea avenues at Inglewood High is where our award winner for this week plies his trade.

Wolfgramm was already on our radar screen as a tackling machine after the 6-foot, 215-pound senior linebacker, who has multiple D1 offers that he started getting prior to his junior season, had 136 tackles with 10 for losses including two sacks for a Sentinels’ team that went 8-3 last season.

It’s hard to top those kinds of numbers but Wolfgramm has been wolfing down tackles at an even greater pace than last season and his most recent performance was exceptional, but it was just another day at the office for Venilaite, and in fact it wasn’t even his highest total this season.

In last week’s surprising 47-7 rout of a previous Cal-Hi Sports No. 18 ranked St. Bonaventure of Ventura, that dropped the Bonnies to No. 30 in this week’s rankings and jumped unbeaten Inglewood up to No. 15, Wolfgramm had 18 total tackles with 13 solo and four for losses, and he did it against a TOP 25 at the time state-ranked opponent. Pretty impressive.

The top mark for Wolfgramm came two weeks ago in a 34-21 victory over nearby Carson when he recorded 22 tackles with 14 solo and two for losses including a sack.

So far this season for an Inglewood team that has started 4-0 and moved up 13 notches in this week’s Cal-Hi Sports state rankings, Wolfgramm is averaging 16.5 tackles per game and that adds up to 66 total tackles with 41 solo and nine for losses including two sacks plus a forced fumble.

Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Multi-Purpose/Special Teams Player of the Week

Chase Mattoon (El Segundo) Soph.

The search for the Southern California Multi-Purpose/Special Teams Player of the Week takes us around halfway between the Pacific Ocean beach and the Pacific Coast Highway and a little over a half mile south of Los International Airport in El Segundo at El Segundo High. Inglewood is just east of LAX while El Segundo is just to the south.

Last year we expanded what had been a Special Teams Player of the Week to include Multi-Purpose since quite often we had some difficulties finding an honoree from just the kicking game, but this week’s award winner is a kicker and he had a foot in every major play of his most recent performance.

Last week, in a 16-7 victory on the road at South of Torrance, Mattoon converted the PAT after El Segundo scored to take a 7-0 lead midway through the second quarter. He then executed an onside kick that the Eagles’ 5-foot-11, 170-pound sophomore recovered himself. After the recovery Chase cashed in with a short field goal to give El Segundo a 10-0 lead with around three minutes left in the half.

The Eagles got the ball back quickly before halftime and Mattoon booted a 32-yard field goal to open up a 13-0 lead after two quarters. After South scored around midway through the fourth quarter, Mattoon closed out the scoring with a 40-yard field goal, the longest of his short tenure as the varsity placekicker. All told, he had three field goals and an onside kick recovery in the same game. In his first game this season, Mattoon kicked eight PATs, scored a touchdown and had an interception on defense.

Chase’s name is more familiar to baseball followers. He plays shortstop, started as a freshman for the Eagles, and ended with a .307 batting average with 24 RBI.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Offensive Player of the Week

Carson Lamb (Downey, Modesto) Sr.

To locate the Northern California Offensive Player of the Week we find ourselves in the southern portion of the CIF Sac Joaquin Section around a mile northeast of downtown Modesto at Thomas Downey High. It’s there that we honor, Lamb, a 6-foot, 170-pound senior quarterback who’s been more like a lion than a lamb with the kind of numbers he’s posted so far this season.

In last week’s 47-36 victory over Amador Valley of Pleasanton, Carson had his top performance of the year after going 29-of-35 for 454 yards and three TDs, plus he added 40 yards rushing on five carries.

So far this season in a 4-0 start for Downey, Lamb has now gone over 300 yards passing three times with 328 yards and five TDs in a solid 53-42 win over Elk Grove and 352 yards and four TDs two weeks ago against Merced.

Heading into a showdown with visiting Edison of Stockton, Lamb is 81-of-112 for 1,288 yards and 14 TDs with only two interceptions, and that translates into a very formidable 142.4 quarterback rating. He’s also rushed for 147 yards.

The 1,288 yards is the leading reported mark in the Sac-Joaquin Section and comes in at No. 4 so far in the state.

Lamb missed four games with a finger injury last season, but is determined to have a big season. Carson was particularly motivated against Amador Valley since its quarterback, Tristan Ti’a, has some D1 offers and as of yet he does not.

“He has continued to improve his game and has shown his versatility to be both laser-accurate on his passes, but also have the moxie to use his feet to pick up first downs,” said proud Downey head coach Jeremy Plaa. “Last wee he got the opportunity to show that he’s right up there with the D-1 QB from Amador Valley, and he proved he’s a college-level QB that is going to have success at the next level.”

Liam McMann has been a force so far this year at defensive end for 3-0 San Marin of Novato. Photo: Harold Abend.

Liam McMann (San Marin, Novato) Jr.

One of the things about this feature over the years is we talk about finding our way to the school where the honoree plays to give things a little color and give readers a little geographical knowledge about the cities and towns where our award winners play.

In the case of McMann, we were actually there in the flesh and recorded his heroics personally.

Last week, in a 34-12 victory over visiting Moreau Catholic of Hayward, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound junior defensive end showed why he is a tough load to handle.

The San Marin defense played very well and there were several other Mustangs’ players that had solid outings, but the biggest star on defense, who also got into the act on offense, was McMann.

His line was four sacks to start with, and that is something that although falls two sacks short of making the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book Most QB Sacks (Game) list, it’s still a formidable number and something we take notice of.

His first sack he got credit for was on a fumble by the Moreau quarterback. Liam got two other solo sacks, and two other half sacks where there was no question he was the first tackler on the scene. McMann also had a fumble recovery he scooped up and it wasn’t likely he was going to go around 80 yards for a scoop and score, but it took 3-4 Moreau tacklers to bering the big fellow down and he got credit for a 28-yard return.

It does not count towards the statewide honor for McMann, but the icing on the cake for Liam is he only caught one pass as a tight end, but it went for a 12-yard touchdown. Talk about a huge performance.

So far this season for 3-0 San Marin and heading into a match-up on the road in Petaluma at Casa Grande this Friday night, McMann has recorded eight sacks and has two fumble recoveries.

San Marin head coach Dominic DiMare is working on reporting stats but if McMann’s eight sacks were reported it would be tied for the top mark in the CIF North Coast Section and No. 3 in the state.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Multi-Purpose/Special Teams Player of the Week

Robert Garcia Jr. (Delano) Sr.

We had been waiting to hear from longtime Cal-Hi Sports friend and contributor and CIF Central Section historian Bob Barnett, and we finally got a nomination from him from his weekly Milestones missive. We mention that Barnett is the Central Section historian so this is an opportunity to remind readers that the Central Section, or “The Valley” as the locals like to call it, is considered Northern California when it comes to players of the week honors for all sports, boys and girls.

Barnett reports that Garcia set a school record for returning two punts for touchdowns last week in a 27-7 victory over Foothill of Bakersfield.

But wait, there’s more. Garcia got into the act on special teams even more by scoring TDs two different ways. Besides the punt return TDs, he scooped a punt his own team’s blocked punt and took it to the house for a third special teams score.

Garcia came close but it takes three punt returns for a touchdown in a game to qualify for the Most Punt Return Touchdowns (Game) list in the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book. Garcia also can be quite effective for the Tigers returning kicks and playing receiver.

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