Bay Area Issue 171 October 2019 by Sport Stars Magazine

BAY AREA EDITION OCTOBER 2019 VOL. 10 ISSUE 171

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hat do Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist water polo player Maggie Steffens and Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon all have in common? They all played high school sports in Northern California during the SportStars Magazine Era. That era will reach 10 full years in length this coming June. Beginning this November we plan to begin an eight-month long celebration of our decade of covering Northern California’s best high school athletes and teams. The project will be called The Big 10. The goal of The Big 10 Series will be naming the top 10 athletes of the SportStars Decade in each of the sports that end in CIF regional or state championships. In many of the sports we’ll name the top 10 teams as well. We’ll build these lists through interviews with coaches, conversations with other journalists and our own research. What each athlete accomplished within their high school career will be balanced with his or her success at the higher levels. Our plan is to involve our readers as well. In certain sports, we’ll be hosting regular voting contests for you to choose who you believe were the top athlete and team of the decade. They will not be easy decisions. We promise.

Our tentative schedule for the fall season rollout will begin with The Big 10 for girls golfers in mid- to late-November exclusively at SportStarsMag. com. They’ll be quickly followed by our list for boys and girls cross country runners, and then our first big vote will come after the CIF State Girls Volleyball Championships wrap up. With your help, we’ll produce The Big 10 girls volleyball players and girls volleyball teams. Girls tennis and boys and girls water polo will also be part of the celebration. Football will come after the new year. The Big 10 Series will run all the way into next July and August before we finally finish. Our 10th Anniversary issue in June will feature The Big 10 overall male athletes, and The Big 10 overall female athletes. The issue will also have The Big 10 overall boys teams and The Big 10 overall girls teams. Those should be real easy lists to put together, right? We’re filled with anxiety just thinking about it. Pretty sure Goff, Steffens and Gordon will have even more in common after those are produced. Keep an eye on at SportStarsMag.com and our social media channels for more on The Big 10 as we get closer to the start of the series. ✪

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CIF Bowl Crystal Ball

ot even halfway through the football regular season, it’s already very possible to start penciling in teams for this year’s CIF Northern California regional championship games. And we aren’t just talking about the top two teams. At the No. 1 position — which is the team automatically sent to the CIF Open Division state final — there is of course De La Salle-Concord. After the Spartans defeated Folsom 42-27 on Sept. 13 and then Buchanan-Clovis 35-0 on Sept. 20, they face only CIF North Coast Section competition the rest of the regular season and playoffs (other than a matchup against one-win St. Mary’s-Stockton on Sept. 27). They haven’t lost in an NCS playoff game since 1991 and none of the other teams in the NCS have shown they can offer much of a challenge so far. If recent history is a guide, the De La Salle matchup at Folsom probably determined which team goes to the CIF Open Division state final and which one will host a CIF NorCal 1-AA title game. Folsom won the CIF 1-AA state title last year after losing in the regular season to De La Salle 14-0. The Bulldogs also won that title in 2017 and finished 16-0. DLS hasn’t lost to a team north of Fresno since 1991, and as long as that streak is going, it doesn’t make any sense for the CIF to consider any other team for the Open Division. Following the loss to the Spartans, Folsom bounced back to beat Oak Ridge-El Dorado Hills 36-33. Oak Ridge was the second highest-ranked team from the Sac-Joaquin Section in Division I so the odds of the Bulldogs not losing again through the SJS playoffs are high. Assuming De La Salle and Folsom are locked in, the only major question mark for the top of the NorCal bowl board is whether the Central Coast Section Open Division champion or the Central Section Division I champion would join the Bulldogs in the 1-AA bracket. In the CCS, the two leading teams over the first few weeks of the season have been Serra-San Mateo and Valley Christian-San Jose. Serra’s first few games on the schedule have been a little bit tougher, but the two teams will meet in the West Catholic Athletic League and could play again in the CCS Open final. Central-Fresno is going for a third straight Central Section Div. I crown and was the team which played Folsom in last season’s NorCal 1-AA game (losing 84-46 in a game that featured more than 1,400 yards). If Serra or Valley Christian were to defeat the other team twice, it would appear that team would be the choice to face Folsom. If those two split and Central completes its section playoffs with a perfect record, then another Folsom-Central matchup is likely. There also are other slots on the NorCal board that can be filled in, too. On the same night De La Salle played Folsom, McClymonds-Oakland topped Campolindo-Moraga 41-21.

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Mack has won CIF state titles the last three seasons in 5-AA, 5A and 4A. This year, it’s a guarantee that the Warriors are going to be in a much higher division if they, as expected, win another Oakland Section crown. But how high? The assurance of Mack going much higher is because the CCS will no longer be getting Open Division runner-ups or two other Open Division champions qualified for the CIF bowls. It’s just going to be one CCS Open Division winner. The next CCS champion (Division I) will essentially only be that section’s ninthbest team. Last year, McClymonds was on the NorCal board behind CCS teams Valley Christian, St. Francis-Mountain View, Menlo-AthertonAtherton and Wilcox-Santa Clara. The Warriors will only be behind the Open Division winner this year. Plus, they’ve already got a win over CIF North Coast Section Div. III contender Marin Catholic-Kentfield and Div. II-power Campolindo. McClymonds still has a tough game against San Leandro, but it should cruise to the Oakland Section title after that. The Warriors might be behind Clayton Valley-Concord on the NorCal board if the Ugly Eagles were to win the NCS Div. II title, especially based on Clayton Valley’s solid showing in a one-point loss to Liberty-Brentwood. Other than that, though, head coach Michael Peters’ team probably will be either draw a CIF 2-AA or 2-A berth come December. That’s high for a school with low enrollment like McClymonds, but for competitive equity purposes it’ll be hard to be any lower. Peters obviously couldn’t tell his players to go out and lose to Campolindo and Marin Catholic for a lower (and easier) state division. At the bottom of the NorCal board, it already doesn’t look like San Francisco will have a team like last year’s Lincoln — which won the CIF 6-A state title. That would put the eventual SF champion at the very bottom of the board (where Denair was last year). And with the NCS getting one more team into the field, that last division this year probably will have an actual game played instead of a bye. Let’s just hope all of this speculation will be fun and can continue through the section playoffs. No natural disasters or smokey skies please. ✪ Mark Tennis is the co-founder of Cal-Hi Sports and publisher of CalHiSports.com. Contact him at markjtennis@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @CalHiSports

Behind the Clipboard by Clay Kallam

Playing Favorites? We’ve got a lot of guys on the football team, but the coach plays his four or five favorites both ways. They can’t help but get tired, and maybe a couple of them are better than me no matter how tired they are, but I know I’m better than guys he plays ahead of me when they aren’t 100 percent. Why does the coach play people all the time when there are fresh people ready to go? A.B., Sacramento

irst, let’s talk about this hard truth: We all think we’re better than we actually are. Confidence is important, no question, but it’s human nature to think we can do things that we really can’t — so to say you’re better than the coach’s “favorites” isn’t necessarily true. Of course, the coach could be playing favorites and what you say could be true, but for the sake of argument, and to widen the scope of your question, why do high school coaches play guys both ways when they have plenty of reserves who are almost as good on the bench? What it comes down is that there are two competing agendas at work here, and they don’t always point to the same conclusion. Agenda No. 1: Win as many games as possible. This would seem like the only agenda, but in high school sports it really isn’t — well, maybe for Folsom and De La Salle-Concord and those kinds of teams, but really winning is far from everything at the high school level. Still, winning games is very important, and if the coach feels that his best four kids are better, even at 80 percent because of fatigue, than their backups, he’s going to play them because that will help him win. (Of course, that also increases the chances of injury for those players, but that’s a risk the coach might have to take.) Agenda No. 2: Make sure the players, their families and the school community get the most out of the season as possible. So really, what’s the difference between going 6-4 and 7-3? OK, postseason seeding, yadda yadda, but 10 years from now, who will remember? What players and families will remember is whether it was a good experience. Ask someone in their 50s who played high school football what the team’s record was when they were a junior — and unless it was special, one way or another, they probably don’t know for sure. But ask them if they had a good time, and they’ll know right away. From this angle, having kids go both ways doesn’t make as much sense. By getting more players involved, more young men will get more out of their athletic experience, and even if it costs a team a game, it would be worth it in terms of the benefits of high school sports to those who participate. (And, of course, if the star quarterback doesn’t play safety, maybe he doesn’t dislocate his shoulder making a tackle in game 5, and the team wins three more games …) You may think head coaches of high school football teams don’t think about Agenda No. 2 at all, but you would be wrong. Many don’t, but those who have been around a while know that wins and losses are far from the only way to judge the success of a season, and that sometimes the price of an extra win or two is simply not worth the cost. In your case, the coach is clearly putting Agenda No. 1 ahead of Agenda No. 2, which means to justify his decision, your team needs to win games. If the two-way kids stay healthy, other things don’t go wrong and if you get a little luck, it could all work out for him. But if the situation goes south, and the losses pile up, your coach will soon discover that Agenda No. 2 is more important than he thought, and that he may reconsider playing a lot of guys both ways when he gets his next job. ✪ Clay Kallam has been an assistant athletic director and has coached numerous sports at a handful of high schools throughout the Bay Area. To submit a question for Behind the Clipboard, email him at claykallam@gmail.com.

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Jewel Roemer amazes in many ways. Foremost might be her positive energy, which shines like the sun. And there’s her mastery of the game of water polo, which has propelled her to international fame and travel. She’s been to Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Portugal — just since this spring. To endure a 20-hour trip home after intense competition in Portugal and be back at high school and water polo practice the next day with a burst of energy is what Roemer is all about. The Acalanes High-Lafayette senior is a national phenom who has energy to spare. Less than 48 hours from her long trek back from Funchal, Portugal, playing for the USA Women’s Junior National Team in the FINA Women’s Junior World Championships, she was back in her home pool on Sept. 18 playing with the Dons in a 14-1 win over Monte Vista-Danville. “I love seeing my teammates,” Roemer said, beaming with joy. “They are my best friends. And it’s the funnest playing with all of them, for sure.” These are happy times in the land of the Dons. They won the Amanda MacDonald Invitational in Atherton — packed with Central Coast Section standouts — landing a 15-6 win over Sacred Heart Prep-Atherton in the Sept. 20 finals. That put their win streak at 36, built on their incredible 27-0 season in 2018 that ended with the first North Coast Section Open Division championship in girls water polo. Roemer’s return provided a noticeable boost, even for a talent-packed team with the likes of junior Claire Rowell, whose sister Lexi just started at Stanford, and four-year varsity star Mary Beth Heffelfinger. “She was back at practice last night and immediately the level of our practice was different,” Acalanes coach Misha Buchel said following the Sept. 18 win over Monte Vista. “It’s a higher level, the pace at which we play our scrimmage and run our offense is that much quicker. Players who were getting open, and now the ball — when she is the one with the ball in her hand — it finds them where it needs to be.” “I think she really helps to push the intensity of the team,” said Heffelfinger, one of Roemer’s best friends on the team. “She is a really nice person. She is really smart, really positive. And a great friend to everyone.” In Roemer’s case, it all adds up to excellence. She’s narrowed down her college choices to Stanford, Cal and UCLA — not just premier West Coast programs, but three of the top four teams in the country. Stanford is the defending national champion. She

Story By Mike Wood | Photos By Chace Bryson 12

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can sign a letter of intent as early as November 13. “She has that perfect blend of incredible game sense, incredible physical talent and incredible discipline in her work rate. So every box gets checked,” said Buchel, who has taught her in Algebra II pre-calculus honors along with engineering and applied physics. “She doesn’t just rely on the fact that she’s the most physically talented kid in the pool and just kind of coast. She just doesn’t do that.” Though a crushing 9-8 quarterfinal loss to Italy led to the U.S. finishing sixth, Roemer was the second-leading scorer for the U.S. at the Junior World Champinoships. She scored 15 goals — 11th of all competitors. Two scores were game-winners, one with 46 seconds left for the 8-7 victory against Hungary and another with 1:46 left that decided the 9-8 win over Australia. But don’t think of her as just a scoring machine. “She is not just a scorer or anything like that; she is a facilitator,” Buchel said. “That’s the role we use her in. Anything that we would use her to do, she would be the best person in the pool. “So instead of having her be just the pure focal point of the offense, like the end product, we have her be the person who is setting everything up for her teammates. Because she has such gravity and attracts so much attention, that creates so much space for her teammates.” Naturally, Roemer is just fine with such a role. “I am more of an outside shooter, and I am on the smaller side (5-foot-7) for my sport,” she said. “I’m not a big center presence. Being an outside shooter and a driver is a lot easier for me. “I get to see the whole pool and it’s easy to facilitate in this high school game.” That she grew to love water polo had to be a relief for her father, John, who starred at the sport at Cal for the legendary Pete Cutino. He has been a longtime coach himself and has spent the last 10 years coaching his daughter at the club level. It wasn’t easy getting his kids to love the sport. His three sons all tried water polo but drifted to basketball, with Kyle and Paul playing for championship teams at De La Salle-Concord. Jewel, the youngest in her family by 14 years, wasn’t enamoured with water polo at first, either. “She first started playing at 7 and absolutely hated it,” John Roemer said. “Who wants to get their face

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Jewel Roemer in action with the US Women’s Junior National Water Polo team

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splashed, and get pushed under water?” She soon showed an amazing amount of aptitude and technique, with her fundamental leg movement and comfort with the ball. “I’d take her to school 15 minutes early, and whether it was a football, a softball, we were throwing. Every single day she threw for 15 minutes.” By age 9 she was playing at the 12-under level. “Just even at those early stages, you could see everything she did was fundamentally sound,” Buchel said. “The way she picked up the ball out of the water. The way she passed for her young age. The technique was right from the very beginning. And that’s carried through going forward, as she has gotten older. That flawless technique in everything. How she positions herself in the water. She doesn’t have to worry about that stuff. And her game sense is just off the charts. Her anticipation even at those young ages was so good.” After her family moved to Southern California, she spent her freshman year at Dos PueblosGoleta playing with standouts Ryann Neushul and Abbi Hill. But with her grandmother ill, her family moved back to the Bay Area the Wednesday before her sophomore year. She joined Acalanes, which was coming off winning its first NCS title, in Division II. “It was very hard for her to move, but when she started going to Acalanes, she ended up lov-

ing it,” John Roemer said. Her sophomore season, the Dons played Division I but lost a 9-8 NCS semifinal heartbreaker in triple overtime to Monte Vista. Buchel knew his team had the talent to go all the way, and said so right after that devastating loss. “I said to the girls ‘Next year, we are winning them all. Next year we are bringing back a team that is good enough that if we put in the work in these ensuing nine months, we are good enough to win anything,’” he recalled. It culminated in a 27-0 run to that first Open Division title, beating championship perennials like San Ramon Valley-Danville in the semifinals and Campolindo-Moraga in the championship game. Roemer’s summer seemed to take her everywhere. After two weeks of intense training, Roemer spent a week playing on Portugal’s Madeira Island: “Gorgeous; definitely the most amazing place I’ve been to.” What were her biggest takeaways from the Junior World Championships? “The intensity, especially in such a high level tournament,” she said. “You really learn how to go 100 percent the whole time. And a lot of the technical aspects of the game. You learn a lot of little different techniques.” Another big honor was being chosen to play in the first beach water polo World Championships in July, in conjunction with the Women’s National Team playing in the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. “It’s very fast paced. 3-on-3 plus a goalie. Smaller course, smaller goals, no stopping so after a goal, you just go straight to defense,” she said. “It’s very quick; you have to sub on the fly. … It was really difficult to get the hang of. It was actually really fun.” Somehow she had time in July to play in the Junior Olympics, winning the 18-under title with 680 Drivers Water Polo and sharing MVP honors with teammate Elena Flynn from Leland-San Jose. To drive home how highly she is rising in water polo, she was named to the Senior National Team for the FINA Intercontinental Tournaments in Australia in March and New Zealand in April. She was on the same team with East Bay native Maggie Steffens, the Monte Vista graduate and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist who is regarded by many as the best player in the world. Some have said Roemer is the best to come along the Bay Area scene since Steffens. Buchel said such comparisons are not a reach. “To be in that conversation is no joke. There are some others who are in the conversation there, probably, but ... she’s up there,” Buchel said with a chuckle of understatement. Up there, and rising all the time. ✪ 14

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NCVA Salutes CEO Donna Donaghy On 25 Years Of Regional Leadership

hris Stanley knew what the Northern California Volleyball Association was getting when it hired Donna Donaghy as its commissioner back in October of 1994. Stanley, the long-respected college volleyball coach who held tenures at Cal and UOP, had hired Donaghy to help him at his youth tournaments in the mid- to late-80s. He’d also held the job of NCVA Commissioner, and he knew Donaghy would excel. “She’s an incredibly hard worker,” Stanley said in a phone interview from his home in Oregon. “She’s intensely detailed. … She’d get to work an hour early and leave an hour late.” When Donaghy took over, the NCVA’s business operations were still being run out of a residence. The Far Western Nationals Girls Qualifying tournament — a tournament founded by Stanley — was held at Stanford and featured approximately 100 teams. Twenty-five years later, the NCVA is a thriving business with an executive staff of more than 10 people. The Far Western Nationals tournament is now held in Reno and welcomes more than 1,250 teams over two weekends. And the NCVA recently jumped from USA Volleyball’s fifth-largest region to its third-largest. Donaghy still oversee it all as the region’s Chief Executive Officer. “She has molded everything that NCVA is,” NCVA Director of Business Development Evan Orlando said. Donaghy shepherded the region to an office, developed and facilitated some of the state’s best-run tournaments, and established the NCVA as a regional model that USA Volleyball touted to other portions of the country. Judy Praska was interning for USA Volleyball when she first met Donaghy in 1998. Not long after, she became Executive Director for the North Country region representing Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Upper Michigan. “(Donna) took me under her wing at the national tournaments. Taught me the ropes,” Praska said in a phone call from Minnesota where she now operates a drug testing business after 18 years of running North Country. “When I became director, any time I had a question I knew I could just pick up the phone and call Donna.” Perhaps Donaghy’s most lasting legacy will be the vast amount of opportunity she created for the expansion of youth volleyball for both girls and boys of Northern California. “These exceptionally run tournaments created space for volleyball to grow throughout the area,” Stanley said. Donaghy, whose husband Tom works as the Chief Operations Officer at NCVA, is also in her final year of a four-year team on the USA Volleyball Board of Directors. She’s been the recipient of several distinguished service awards, including the Neville A. “Doc” Booth Commissioner’s Award this past May. “She built everything,” Stanley concluded. “She deserves all of this success.” ✪

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Donna Donaghy, left, is presented with an award by USA Volleyball Follow us on Twitter & Instagram, like us on Facebook!

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he final point was almost anti-climatic, with Sarah Cheng spiking the ball to finish off a 25-27, 25-20, 25-19, 25-12 win for Sacred Heart Cathedral-San Francisco over visiting Valley Christian-San Jose on Sept. 18. The Fightin’ Irish had been challenged in their West Catholic Athletic League opener, only to take control as the match went on. Megan Lenn had 20 kills for Sacred Heart Cathedral, which improved to 9-2 on the season. Skylar Canady had 15 kills with three aces and Cheng finished with seven kills. “I think we really did well in the serve and pass game,” Canady said. “We did a good job incorporating everyone in the offense as well. I think there was definitely more confidence in ourselves (as the match went on), playing together and believing that we could actually win, even though we did lose that first set.” The Fightin’ Irish are coming off a 31-7 season which ended with a loss to Central-Fresno in the California Interscholastic Federation Open Division second round. Sacred Heart Cathedral entered the state playoffs as the top seed in the Northern Regional, so there’s some unfinished business for the Irish. “Of course we have high goals, because we are defending WCAL and CCS Open champs,” coach Margi Beima said. “That being said, every season is a new season and you have some new personnel and you’re really trying to gel. We’re really trying to stay patient because it’s still a process. We still have growth, we still can be better, we can still develop our offense, be

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Megan Lenn

better on serve-receive. Being patient with the process and enjoying that is really, really important. And staying present. Not thinking too much about what happened in the past and not looking forward too much. “I want the kids to enjoy the game and enjoy playing with each other. The goals, the three words that we’re kind of going for are grit, confidence and also fun. Fun is one of our goals.” Fun, and positivity are keys for Sacred Heart Cathedral. “She’s very positive on the court,” Lenn said of her fellow senior Canady. “She helps us all out a lot. She really supports you. And for me, she tells me where to hit and it usually scores when she does.” Countered Canady, “Megan is the most positive person I have ever met. And she’s so modest. She gets a kill and she’s like, ‘Oh.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, Megan!!!’” In case you couldn’t tell, Canady is the more fiery of the outside hitters while Lenn is a little bit more low-key. They both love their teammates. Senior setter Alden Standley, who had three aces and two blocks in the win over the Warriors? “She’s a big contributor to our offense, the person who distributes the ball in order for us to get it over the net,” Canady said. Alyssa Taylor is a junior defensive specialist. “She’s one of the younger ones on our team but she contributes a bunch of energy and is always positive on the court,” Lenn said. How about senior libero Alyssa Lee, who had 18 digs against Valley Christian? “She’s taking a lot of space, taking a lot of pressure off of me and Megan in the back row,” Canady said. “Covering some ground on defense, getting the tips and deep hits.” Follow us on Twitter & Instagram, like us on Facebook!

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The match with Valley Christian showed off all of Sacred Heart Cathedral’s strengths. Early on, the Warriors looked the equal, especially with the blocking up front by their talented frontline of Izzy Marshall, Sonte Stewart, Logan Manley, Victoria Li and Kaylee Zhang. The first set was nip and tuck with the Irish going up 13-8 at one point, but Valley Christian rallied back. Sacred Heart had a 25-24 lead late, but the Warriors scored the final three points with Marshall blocking a Canady kill attempt for the winning point. The second set was tight but Sacred Heart Cathedral led most of the way. Sophie Seljeseth scored two key points in the late going for the Irish, including the winning point on a soft kill. By the third set, Sacred Heart Cathedral was in control. Three consecutive points on Canady’s service was soon followed up by a five-point run on Standley’s. Lenn was firing on all cylinders by this time, scoring a pair of kills each during both runs. After building an 18-9 lead, the Irish won it when Valley Christian’s Annique Aarts sent a serve into the net. The final set was all Irish as they quickly built a 9-3 lead. A six-point run on Taylor’s serve extended the advantage to 16-4. Canady had three consecutive kills during that spurt. Amaya Keiper came off the bench and held serve for five more points and it was 22-6. Lenn added 16 digs and three blocks on the night. “Our passing got better as the match went on,” Beima said. “When we’re passing well, we’re able to run the offense the way we want.” Said Warriors coach Ron Whitmill, “We have a relatively inexperienced group and our confidence sometimes goes up and down. The positive thing is we’re growing, getting better every day.” Said Lenn, “We all connected well as a team. We were all talking a lot. Our blocking mostly (tightened up). We went inside more for the block and (left) the line open so we can dig it. We did more placement (hitting) over power, so that helped a lot.” Whitmill was impressed with the Irish. “They have a little bit more experience than us,” he said. “They have great ball control. They play great defense. They have two really good outside hitters that can do a little bit of everything. It makes it difficult. They have good setting. “Mainly, all around, they have a lot of kids that are just really confident. Very well-trained, well-coached. They know exactly what to do to win. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. If we can keep our errors down, we can play with teams like that. Obviously, we didn’t do that that well as the match went on. They kind of wore us down. But Sacred Heart’s a very good team. It’s no issue losing to them.” Beima may want her team to stay in the moment. But there is a very clear goal, according to Canady and Lenn. “State,” Canady. “Getting to state, getting there. Definitely winning WCAL, CCS Open.” Added Lenn, “Having a fun senior year!” Just as their coach drew it up. ✪ 22

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here are very few student-athletes who would warrant a 5 a.m. wake-up call for a 7 a.m. interview 30 miles away in commute traffic, but Marin Catholic HighKentfield two-way lineman Jamar Sekona is one of them. He’s personable, polite and respectful. But don’t let that off-the-field demeanor fool you. On the football field, between the lines, Sekona is fearsome. Opposing offensive linemen trying to block him, and defensive linemen trying to move him off the line of scrimmage rarely succeed against the 6-foot-4, 310-pound USC-committed man-child. “What stands out about top-five power players is their freakish size and athleticism,” Marin Catholic coach Mazi Moayed said. “What makes Jamar a rarity is the addition of his character and leadership. “Jamar motivates everyone around him and leads by example, and not just on the team but within the entire Marin Catholic community. At the same time, he genuinely cares about everyone around him with his big heart. And some of that has to do with the fact he’s experienced some lows and highs life has to offer.” Monday morning in the weight room begins at 6:30 a.m. and by 7:00 there were still no coaches there. They don’t need any coaches present because Sekona has the team firmly in hand. “One of my personal goals is to be the best leader I can be for the team,” Sekona said. “I want to be sure I leave a legacy for the younger guys, and for my class when I leave knowing I left it all on the field helping us have the best year we’ve ever had.” Outside of a 19-7 loss to three-time defending CIF State Bowl Game champion McClymondsOakland on Aug. 31, the Sekona-led offensive and defensive lines have dominated. They smothered El Cerrito and Monterey in running-clock wins, dominated an Archbishop Mitty-San Jose with a pretty decent resume, 35-9, and improved to 4-1 with an impressive 34-7 win at Antioch. Sekona played a key role in each game. St. Vincent de Paul-Petaluma coach Trent Herzog also serves as the National Preps western region scout covering NorCal, Nevada, Oregon and Washington for as many as 300 colleges. He calls Sekona “the best defensive lineman in the state.” Herzog knows Sunday-level talent. Prior to taking over the St. Vincent program two years ago, Herzog had an extensive tenure leading Casa Grande-Petaluma. There he coached defensive lineman Elijah Qualls, who earned a Super Bowl ring with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017. “Sekona has it all,” Herzog said. “Size, strength, power, quickness, explosiveness and heavy hands. Plus, he’s a great kid and he wants to learn and asks questions. In the 30 years I’ve been around high school football in the Redwood Empire, he and Qualls are the two best defensive linemen I’ve seen. Qualls was more athletic but Sekona is bigger, stronger and has better fundamentals and technique.” Herzog spent a good amount of time around Sekona over this past summer as he helped select a roster for the Pro Football Hall of Fame World Bowl. “We brought him and 40 other All-Americans out to Canton, Ohio, for three days,” Herzog said. “I got to know him pretty well. What an awesome kid. The sky’s the limit.” When asked if it makes him feel good to have his character pointed out just as much as his football prowess, Sekona had this to say. “Yes it does, and it makes me proud of how I was brought up by my mother.” Jamar is the only son of a single parent. His mother, Margaret Sekona, a hospice caregiver, also has six daughters, and they’re all older than the baby of the family. According to Moayed the family has had it challenges, but they’ve always risen up to overcome them. When Sekona committed to USC on July 30, it ended the buzz that had been circulating on social media. He had 13 major college offers, including nine Pac-12 schools, but USC always

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October 2019

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appeared to be the front-runner as the first team to offer him a scholarship. “I definitely had a lot more interest in USC right away when they offered me my sophomore year,” Sekona said. “But after The Opening (Nike combine in May), and the beginning of summer, I narrowed things down. “USC was a school I really liked right from the start, and over time I began liking them even more. I was just waiting for the right moment.” Jamar is of Tongan and Samoan descent. Was USC’s tradition of looking for Pacific Islanders a factor? “I knew about USC taking in Polynesians and a lot of them came out very successful,” Sekona said. “I knew about the history, and that was a great benefit to look at, but it was not the factor that persuaded me.” Then what did? “I’ve been playing nose (guard) in high school so I’m used to taking on double- and tripleteams, and I’m usually successful,” he said. “I also have been playing on the offensive line, but I want to play nose in college — and USC knows that. I feel very confident I’ll be successful at nose with the right coaching. I felt that from USC and the coaching staff.” Herzog isn’t the only respected analyst to sing the praises of Sekona. “Sekona emerged early on as one of the best in the Western region and has maintained that,” 247Sports.com National Recruiting Editor Brandon Huffman said. “He’s shined at numerous events over the years.” “He still needs to work on consistency and using his technique rather than just relying on his strength and size, which is key,” continued Huffman, who rates Sekona as the No. 2 defensive lineman in California. “But using a variety of moves will get him on the field earlier in college, since he already has the size for it.” Saturdays on the turf of the Los Angeles Coliseum are still a ways off. As of Sept. 21 — while not even playing in the fourth quarter of blowout wins — Sekona had 33 tackles with 10 for loss, five sacks, 11 quarterback hurries plus a forced fumble. Those numbers have Sekona well on his way to duplicating or exceeding his defensive numbers from last season. As a junior he had 102 tackles (21 for loss) and 10 sacks. “About the only thing that has changed since I committed to USC two months ago is I’ve been pushing on conditioning — especially going both ways,” Sekona said. “Another thing is working on technique on both sides of the ball, but mainly defense.” Sekona is looking ahead, but not too far. “The biggest thing is we have to take this week to week and concentrate on execution, the mental part of the game and setting the tone,” Sekona said. “It’s still a little early to say, but as long as we do what we need to do, and take care of what we need to take care of, we’ll have a great shot at our ultimate goal of winning state.” Before Sekona, Qualls was the top lineman recruit ever from the Redwood Empire portion of the North Coast Section. There have been other players who made it to the NFL from the Redwood Empire. Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa linebacker Jerry Robinson and Novato quarterback Mike Moroski were the first, back in 1979. Since then, San Marin-Novato fullback Brad Muster followed, and then Newman running back/linebacker Scooby Wright was next, followed by Jared Goff of Marin Catholic. The difference between those players and Sekona is none of them, even Goff, were considered either the state’s No. 1 or No. 2 player at their position. The sky could indeed be the limit for Sekona. ✪ — Story By Harold Abend | Photos By Chace Bryson Follow us on Twitter & Instagram, like us on Facebook!

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October 2019

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Prairie City

punchout On Sept. 13, De La Salle and Folsom met for the fourth time as the top-two ranked teams in NorCal. With the Bulldogs hosting the Spartans on their own campus for the first time, we made sure to be on hand for the action. We had photographers David Gershon and James K. Leash roaming the sidelines to capture the action and atmosphere. De La Salle prevailed once again, but there was no shortage of drama. 28

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October 2019

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