Spring Primer: Players and teams to watch during the Stanislaus District season
Turlock has never won a Sac-Joaquin Section baseball championship.
That might change in 2020 as the Bulldogs have the best roster in the area with plenty of Division I prospects, including senior Tyler Soderstrom.
Soderstrom is a UCLA signee and potential first-round pick in the upcoming MLB Draft.
The Bulldogs have a pitching rotation that includes: Senior Cole Carrigg (San Diego State), senior Clay Longinotti (San Diego State), senior Andy Owen (USC), and junior Dom Rodriguez (Cal).
Baseball, softball, track and field and golf are the four major sports during the spring sports season, which officially began on Feb. 28.
So, who are the athletes and teams to watch in each sport?
Baseball
Pitman should be talented again with a rotation that includes senior Justin Hill (University of the Pacific) and Kade Morris (Nevada). Hill transferred from Turlock High.
Other players to watch:
- Central Catholic senior pitcher Dalton Durossette (Santa Clara) had 46 strikeouts in 40 innings for the Raiders last year. Central Catholic lost to Los Banos in the Div. IV championship. Junior pitcher Tyler Van Dyk is another player to watch.
- Gregori senior third baseman Jeff Hoffman might be the best hitter in the area. Hoffman hit .475 last year.
- Hilmar senior pitcher Treven Crowley (Fresno State) had 15 strikeouts in five innings in his first start of the season in a 12-0 win over Waterford on Feb. 28.
- Ripon Christian senior Nolan Lingley (Pepperdine) is the reigning Southern League MVP. He had six home runs and 41 RBIs last year and was 7-1 with a 1.47 earned run average.
Golf
Oakdale junior Ryan Meyer finished in sixth place at the CIF State Championship last year and shot 1-under-71 at Dryden Park Golf Course on March 2.
Ripon freshman Chad Flory won the Hilmar Invitational with a 1-under-71 performance at the Tracy Golf & Country Club on March 2.
Downey sophomore Sebastian Sondergaard, an exchange student from Denmark, finished second at the Hilmar Invitational (1-over-73), and has already shot a couple of rounds at 2-under.
Softball
Escalon, Oakdale, and Ripon all won section titles last year.
While they lost Lexie Webb, The Bee’s Player of the Year in 2019, the Mustangs do return senior Cortney Koelmans and junior Dylan Gonzalez among others.
Oakdale already has one big win as they beat Sheldon, 6-5, on May 3. The Huskies are ranked No. 3 by The Sacramento Bee.
Ripon returns most of its starters from last year’s 24-2 team, including senior Lilliana Mejia (Fresno State) and junior Sydney Thomason. Mejia had six home runs and 37 RBIs last year while Thomason had a .575 batting average and 2.10 earned run average.
After winning the Central California Athletic League last year, Enochs returns its top five hitters. Ceres has two talented pitchers in sophomores Brooklyn Heffernan and Megan Yorba.
Waterford senior pitcher Tawni McCarty (Stony Brook) had over 300 strikeouts in 2019 and has multiple starts this year with more than 10 K’s.
Pitman freshman Addie Mettler is a newcomer to watch.
Track and Field
Pitman senior Jayson Martin, Oakdale senior Ben Chappell, and Gregori junior Madison Kackley are three of the top returners in the area.
Martin, who recently signed with Long Beach State, finished the 800 meters in 1 minute, 56.5 seconds at the Pitman Distance Wars on Feb. 28. Martin’s time is third fastest in the state.
Chappell qualified for the state meet in the discus last year and is also an excellent hammer and weight thrower, although both are not official high school events.
Kackley qualified for the state meet in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races and finished fifth in the state Div. I cross country meet last November.
Two of the big meets with local athletes are in March:
Mar. 13: Stanislaus County Meet at Riverbank High. Field events start at 3 p.m. and running events start at 4 p.m.
Mar. 27: County Clash at Oakdale High. Top seven athletes from each of the three counties (Merced, Stanislaus, San Joaquin). Field events start at 4 p.m. with running events at 5 p.m.
