Two of this week’s honorees are Maya Urteaga of Moorpark and Adam Pengel from Rancho Cotate of Rohnert Park. Photos: @Moorpark_GBB / X.com & Facebook.com.
We didn’t have any entries for the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book to track among this week for State Basketball Players of the Week award winners, but we did have some talent that was discovered, including a freshman girls who can light it up from outside, among this week’s honorees. This week our stops are in Rohnert Park and Los Gatos in Northern California. In Southern California, we find our award winners in Rancho Cucamonga and Moorpark.
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Notes: For these honors, we also consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week
Adam Pengel (Rancho Cotate, Rohnert Park) Sr.
The search for the boys Northern California State Basketball Player of the Week takes to the Redwood Empire/North Bay portion of the CIF North Coast Section where we our destination is the heart of Sonoma County and the city of Rohnert Park.
It’s at Rancho Cotate High where we find this week’s award winner who plays his home games at the beautiful, nearly new gymnasium portion of the school’s the state-of-the-art $57 million TAG Center.
Pengel has been pounding down the points all three years of his Cougars’ varsity career but with his recent accomplishments this was the ideal week to honor the 6-foot senior guard.
Last week, in a 59-57 victory over Mill Valley Tamalpais that got Rancho Cotate to 10-2 this season, Pengel poured in 30 points (one three-pointer) with three rebounds, three assists and one steal. It was the third 30-point or more effort for Pengel this season.
Two weeks ago, in a 59-58 victory over Casa Grande of neighboring Petaluma, Pengel went over the career 1,000-point mark after finishing with 28 points, including shooting 5-for-8 from outside the arc, plus nine rebounds.
The very next day, Pengel matched his season high of 37 points (4-for-7 on 3-pointers) in a 67-60 victory over Novato. The previous week Adam had 37 points (6-for-8 on 3-pointers), three rebounds and four steals in an 89-49 win against Sonoma Valley.
So far this season, Pengel is averaging 22.9 points and 4.6 rebounds per game and he’s shooting 42 percent from outside the arc on 32-of-76 on 3-pointers. The 22.9 points is the No. 3 reported mark in the North Coast Section.
Los Gatos multi-sport athlete Nicole Steiner is shown during a game last season. Photo: Jonathan Natividad / Los Gatan.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Nicole Steiner (Los Gatos) Sr.
To find the girls Northern California State Basketball Player of the Week we head to the southwestern edge of Silicon Valley around 12 miles southwest of downtown San Jose. We find this week’s award winner, who now gets a statewide honor to go with local kudos, at Los Gatos High.
Steiner, a 6-foot-1 center/power forward, has been a three-sport star at Los Gatos and one of the team’s top basketball players since her freshman season when she averaged 12.7 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. She was a double-double machine in her sophomore season as well at 19.7 points and 13.6 rebounds per game.
Steiner’s junior stats and stats so far in her senior year have yet to be reported, but in watching Los Gatos and seeing their scores and results, Nicole has continued to produce double-doubles. She had never had a triple-double, and in fact no girls Cats’ player had ever recorded a triple-double until last Saturday. Steiner did just that when she went for 16 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists in a 61-29 win versus Milpitas.
As previously mentioned, Steiner is a three-sport star. She also excels in volleyball where last season she had 220 kills and 41 blocks as an outside hitter for a 20-7 Los Gatos team that made it to the second round of the CIF Division I Northern Regional playoffs.
The Third sport for the solidly-built Steiner is track and field where she was a CIF State Meet placer in both the shot put and discus.
At one point, Steiner was a four-sport athlete but gave up softball after her 2021-22 JV season.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Maya Urteaga (Moorpark) Fr.
We’re off to Ventura County in an effort to locate this week’s Southern California Girls State Basketball Player of the Week, and we land just west of where Highway 118 to the north and Highway 23 to the east intersect in Moorpark, and it’s in Moorpark at Moorpark High that we find this week’s award winner, who now snags a statewide honor to go with local recognition of her most recent feats.
In the past we rarely honored freshmen for these weekly player awards since there were not that many first-year players playing varsity worthy of this type of recognition. My how have times changed as there are a plethora of freshmen with performances worthy of this type of recognition and Urteaga is one of them.
Moorpark had four games last week and Urteaga played well in all of them. On Friday the Musketeers played two games and won both of them, 50-38, over Calabasas Viewpoint and 61-46 over Los Angeles Fairfax. Maya had 75 points combined in the two games after going for 29 points with two three-pointers in the Viewpoint win, and 46 points with eight three-pointers in the Fairfax victory.
On Saturday, Urteaga had 25 points (two three-pointers) in a 55-42 win versus Dominguez of Compton. Moorpark lost its first game last week, 61-54 to Leuzinger of Lawndale, but Maya did her part after finishing with 27 points with seven three-pointers plus six rebounds and five assists. That’s 127 points and 19 three-pointers in four games.
So far this season for 10-4 Moorpark and heading into a Tuesday evening match-up with Camarillo, Urteaga is averaging 28.2 points per game and she connected on 42 three-pointers and shooting 41-percent from behind the arc. The 28.2 points per game is the No. 4 reported mark in both the CIF Southern Section and the state and the 42 three-pointers in the No. 9 reported mark in the state.
Rancho Cucamonga’s Aaron Glass is flanked by teammates Chu Chu Osuji and McKel Shedrick after team won a tourney title last week in Arizona. Photo: X.com.
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Aaron Glass (Rancho Cucamonga) Sr.
The Inland Empire is our destination in search of the Southern California Boys State Basketball Player of the Week. The journey ends a couple of blocks south of the I-210 in Rancho Cucamonga, and it’s at Rancho Cucamonga High that we find this week’s honoree.
To say Glass finished up the Jackrabbit Division of the Nike TOC last week in style might be a bit on an understatement.
In the semifinals on Friday against a Democracy Prep of Las Vagas that is a top five team from Nevada, Glass didn’t pass up many opportunities and helped carry the Cougars to a 68-63 victory after finishing with 31 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
In the championship title game, the 6-foot-2 Glass, who has committed to Texas A&M, came through once again to earn Jackrabbit Division MVP honors. He dropped in 30 points with seven rebounds and four assists in a 76-62 victory over Oakland Tech.
Due to mainly the efforts of Glass, 12-6 Rancho Cucamonga broke into the new Cal-Hi Sports rankings released on Monday in the No. 19 spot.
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
