Two of this week’s honorees are Thomas Williams of Huntington Beach Ocean View & Annabel Teperson of Marin Catholic. Photos: Tim Burt / OC Sports Zone & Courtesy School.
Our search for the Softball and Baseball Players of the Week takes us to the Fresno area and the shadows of majestic Mt. Tamalpais for the Northern California honorees, and to The Beach in Orange County and southwestern San Bernardino County for the Southern California award winners.
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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 Monday nights for the rest of the spring season.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Thomas Williams
(Ocean View, Huntington Beach) Sr.
In our search for the Southern California Baseball Player of the Week, we head to “The Beach” as Huntington Beach is affectionately known as by SoCal folks.
We have chronicled a lot of perfect games from the mound, including this week’s NorCal winner, but for this Ocean View senior his perfection was at the plate.
Last week, in two Seahawks’ victories over Santa Ana Godinez, Williams was perfect as a batter after going 9 for 9 in the two games combined
On Wednesday, Williams was 3 for 3 with a triple, double, three RBI and a run scored in a 10-0 victory.
On Friday, in another big win, Thomas took it up a notch after going 6 for 6 with four doubles, a triple, a single, one RBI and five runs scored to lead Ocean View to its 11th straight victory. The 6-for-6 total doesn’t make the state record book (takes 7-for-7), but the four doubles is a state record tie with many others. The last player reported in Orange County with four doubles in one game as Gerardo Adame from Magnolia of Anaheim in 2010.
Ocean View doesn’t post its stats, so the source of our information and all the stats for this honor came from OCSportsZone.com. In fact, in a late update, they tell us his perfection continued in a 5-4 victory on Monday over Riverside Arlington in a 12th straight win for the 19-6 Seahawks. After going 2 for 2 he’s now hit safely in 11 straight at-bats, which is a number that qualifies for the all-time state list. And since no one else on that list is from Orange County, Tommy has an OC record as well.
With the team not reported on MaxPreps, we’re not sure what Williams’ season totals are, but we’re pretty confident he has probably been a big part of its success. We may have to update this writeup as this week goes on. The state record for most consecutive hits is 18 set in 2008 by Kyle Skipworth from Patriot of Riverside and tied in 2010 by James Bowen of Maxwell.
Emily Leavitt will pitch next at the University of Minnesota. Photo: ncsasports.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Softball Player of the Week
Emily Leavitt
(Ayala, Chino Hills) Sr.
We head to the southwestern corner of San Bernardino County just over the hill from Northern Orange County to find our Southern California Softball Player of the Week.
The Ayala baseball team was just elevated to No. 1 in the latest Cal-Hi Sports Top 25 rankings, but the girls have been winning too, and were 14-3 this season to start this week. All along , the mantra has been pretty much “leave it to Leavitt.”
Last week, Leavitt took it to another level, and in doing so finds herself a place in CIF Southern Section and California softball history.
In a 14-inning 2-0 victory over Glendora, Emily tossed a five-hitter, but for every hit she struck out 6.2 batters after fanning 31 in the game. That mark puts her into a tie for seventh in the CIF Southern Section for single-game strikeouts, and also gets Leavitt a spot in the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book on the list for Most Strikeouts (Game). She also has had the most single-game strikeouts in a California game since Sammy Albanese from Castilleja of Palo Alto had 37 in 14 innings vs. Sequoia of Redwood City in 2009.
We’re sure Emily would like to give a shout-out to teammates Lauryn LeMaster and Aleanna Ramirez. They each drove in a run in the top of the 14th before Leavitt put a lid on it in the bottom of the inning. But who knows, if Ayala hadn’t scored, her strikeouts might have gotten her even higher on all of these lists of records.
Emily was also one of five Bulldogs batters to have three hits, plus she walked and had a sacrifice bunt.
So far this season, the Minnesota-committed Leavitt was 10-2 in 14 appearances with five shutouts after the Glendora win. She had a 0.70 ERA and 188 strikeouts with only five walks in an even 100 innings pitched. Emily has been in double-digit strikeouts 11 times with a previous high of 19 in a 5-1 victory over Rancho Cucamonga. The 188 strikeouts was also the No. 3 reported mark in the CIF Southern Section and No. 6 in the state.
Leavitt can hit too. We already told you she had two knocks against Glendora. On the season Emily was hitting a respectable .360 with a home run, two triples, three doubles and eight RBI.
Devon Daniel plays for one of the top small school programs in Northern California. Photo: Facebook.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Devon Daniel
(Kerman) Jr.
It’s back to The Valley as locals call the CIF Central Section where we remind readers that for all our Player of the Week features for all girls and boys sports that the section is considered part of Northern California.
For this week’s Northern California Baseball Player of the Week, nominated by Central Section historian and longtime Cal-Hi Sports friend and contributor Bob Barnett, we land around 15 miles due west of Fresno on Highway 180 in Kerman, a town of around 15,000 residents that started as a Southern Pacific Railroad stop in the late 19th century.
Kerman High came along a bit later but in its history Daniel did something that has never been done in school history.
According to Barnett, there have been 30 perfect games in the Central Section in the past 60 years in 7-inning games, but last week, in a 7-0 blanking of nearby Firebaugh, Daniel, who plays first base and in the outfield when not on the mound, delivered a perfecto for the first one in school history. Of the 21 batters he faced Devon struck out 13 on 75 pitches. Daniel also provided some punch at the plate. He was 3 for 5 with a double and three runs batted in.
In his next outing, Daniel only pitched 2.1 innings of an 8-0 victory over Yosemite of Oakhurst, but he was perfect once again and struck out five of the seven batters he faced. He also had two hits and both drove in and scored a run.
On the season for the 17-2 Lions, Daniel was 5-2 with a 0.47 ERA and 83 strikeouts with only five walks in 44.2 innings pitched. At the plate, he was hitting .388 and had driven in 11 with 15 runs scored.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Softball Player of the Week
Annabel Teperson
(Marin Catholic, Kentfield) Sr.
For our Northern California Softball Player of the Week choice, we head around 10-miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge on Highway 101, take the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard exit, and head a mile west to the picturesque Marin Catholic campus in the shadows of majestic Mt. Tamalpais. It’s there we find a pitcher and slugger that went out in her final game of the season by firmly establishing herself as the queen of high school softball in the Redwood Empire portion of the CIF North Coast Section.
Talk about a week to remember for the Cal-bound Teperson and the entire Marin Catholic community.
The senior right-hander started the week by throwing a perfect game with 16 strikeouts in a 7-0 win over Cardinal Newman of Santa Rosa. Teperson also had two hits and scored a run as a batter. She followed that up with five perfect innings before giving way to a reliever in a big win over Mill Valley Tamalpais. In that game, she had three hits, scored twice and drove in a run.
Talk about a cherry on top of a sundae, or “desert” as Marin Catholic head coach Dave Albini called her performance in the final game of the season against a Redwood (Larkspur) team that had dealt the Wildcats their lone loss of the season.
Teperson wasn’t perfect but she was spot-on Annabel last Friday in the circle and at the plate against Redwood, and just when it looked like she might prematurely give up her crown as queen to Giants’ junior Sadie Leonard. In a bit of a twist, Marin Catholic was the home team at Redwood since the Wildcats don’t have their own softball field and play all their games on the road.
In a classic pitcher’s duel, Teperson took things totally in her own hands, and we were fortunate enough to witness her feats. In the bottom of the sixth, and with a runner on first after drawing a two-out walk from Leonard, Teperson wasted no time and turned on the first pitch she saw and blasted it well over the 200-foot sign in the left-centerfield power alley. There was never a doubt about the high towering shot leaving the yard from the moment it left her bat.
Redwood got a double off of Annabel after she struck out the first batter in the seventh, but Teperson fanned the next two Giants to finish with 12 strikeouts, and Marin Catholic had a 2-0 victory to finish 15-1 and as the unofficial Marin County Athletic League champions since the league decided not to crown a champion. The win also moved Marin Catholic back into the latest Cal-Hi Sports state rankings in the No. 30 spot.
On the season, Teperson finished 11-1 with a 0.40 ERA and 125 strikeouts and a mere four walks and a paltry three extra base hits in 70 innings pitched. At the plate she batted .571 with five home runs, a triple, five doubles, 30 RBI, and since Annabel has some speed on the bases Albini doesn’t pinch run for her so she scored 24 runs.
In a 4-year varsity career that had this season shortened and last season limited to three games by the pandemic, Teperson finished 53-8 with a 1.05 ERA and 569 strikeouts in 386.1 innings pitched. As a batter, Annabel hit .425 with 11 home runs, 86 RBI and 65 runs scored in 72 total games.
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
