When Joe DeMers was named the Cal-Hi Sports Mr. Baseball State Player of the Year on Thursday, his selection completed a sweep of the top baseball awards for a player and team by Northern California for the first time in quite a while.
With DeMers being honored to go with his College Park team receiving the final No. 1 ranking and the State Team of the Year award, it’s the first time since 2006 that both Mr. Baseball and the State Team of the Year have been from Northern California. That year Tyler Robertson, Bella Vista-Fair Oaks was the player and Bellarmine-San Jose was the team
In fact, in an award that has been dominated by Southern California for the past few decades, DeMers is the first Mr. Baseball from Northern California since Robertson was selected. Plus, he’s the first Bay Area player to be honored since Brian Johnson of Skyline-Oakland received the award in 1986.
Johnson completed a three-year stretch of Bay Area players to receive California high school baseball’s top honor. James Mitchell of El Cerrito, the last player before DeMers from the CIF North Coast Section to garner Mr. Baseball won in 1984, and Serra-San Mateo star Greg Jefferies was the 1985 recipient.
A complete sweep of all the top honors occurred with DeMers selection. Earlier in the week retiring Lowell-San Francisco head coach John Donohue was named the State Coach of the Year.
Those three selections mark the first time since 1978 that Northern California has had a clean sweep of the State Player, Coach and Team of the Year awards. In that year Redwood-Larkspur and its head coach Al Endriss got two of the honors, and Mr. Baseball went to Lloyd Moseby of Oakland.
With respect to Lowell’s Donohue and his receiving some accolades. Until the affable 1969 St. Ignatius-San Francisco graduate was named the State Coach of the Year it had been 70-years since a coach from the CIF San Francisco Section (once known as the Academic Athletic Association) had received that honor.
Not only does Donohue go out with the big honor but his Cardinals team rewarded him with a third-straight CIFSF title with championship game 9-1 victory over cross-town arch rival Washington at ATT Park. They then went on to win a third-straight TransBay Series by taking two of three games from Oakland Tech-Oakland.
The deciding game was a 4-1 victory at San Francisco State that sent Donohue off into retirement with a 735-390-4 record. The coaching wins total is No. 7 all time according to the Cal-Hi Sports State Record Book.
USA Basketball U16 Women dominate
After two games in the 2015 FIBA Americas U16 Championships in Puebla, Mexico the United States has barely broke a sweat in going 2-0 in this week’s action.
They dispatched Argentina 80-48 to open play this week and then overcame a sluggish start and a 7-0 early deficit and trailed 13-12 after the first quarter before turning it on in an 86-41 victory over Honduras.
There are three girls from California on the 12-player roster but only one girl is from Northern California, and that’s State Freshman of the Year Aquira DeCosta from St. Mary’s-Stockton. Besides being the only representative from Northern California she is also one of the youngest girls on the team and one of only five girls from the Class of 2018 on the roster.
The girls are all getting pretty much equal playing time in the first two blowout games but that could change as the competition stiffens.
In the Honduras win the 6-foot-2 DeCosta tied for team high with eight rebounds in 14 minutes of action. She had six rebounds against Argentina.
The only starter from California is State Sophomore of the Year Destiny Littleton of The Bishops-La Jolla. She had six points against Honduras and nine points and five rebounds in the Argentina win. The other California girl is Jayda Adams of Mater Dei-Santa Ana. She had 10 points, five rebounds and four assists against Honduras.
USA will look to improve to 3-0 with a game against a host Mexico team that is also 2-0 entering the Friday night showdown. First place in Group A is at stake going into the classification semifinals on Saturday.
