5. ANTOINE CUSTER
De La Salle-Concord, Football, JR.
The speedy-yet-powerful 5-foot-8, 185-pound running back was the SportStars Bay Area Male Athlete of the Fall after he rushed for 1,942 yards, a single-season total which placed him No. 6 on the progam’s all-time list. He rushed for 24 TDs without a single fumble lost and also had a receiving and a special teams score. In the CIF Open Div. State Championship Bowl game, Custer carried 31 times for 268 yards and four touchdowns. The rushing yards set an Open Div. Bowl record. As a rotating member of the secondary on defense, he finished with 23 tackles and 1.5 sacks on the season as well.
College Park-Pleasant Hill, Baseball, SR.
DeMers has been the East Bay’s most complete baseball player for each of the last three seasons. In 2015, he was named Mr. State Baseball by Cal-Hi Sports one year after it named him State Junior of the Year and two years after naming him State Sophomore of the Year. As the team ace in 2015 he compiled a 13-1 record with a 0.51 ERA. He threw 10 complete games, five were shutouts and three were no-hitters. He also notched two saves. Offensively, he led the team in RBI (44), doubles (16), home runs (6) and extra-base hits (24). College Park went 24-3 and were NCS Div. I champions.
3. RON SMITH
St. Mary’s-Berkeley, Football/Track, SR.
Smith is bound for San Diego State for football after a season which earned him a SportStars All-NorCal selection as well as a 1st-Team All-Metro defense selection by the San Francisco Chronicle. Smith had six interceptions and averaged near nine tackles/game for a stingy Panthers defense in 2015. He closed his prep career by winning state gold in the triple jump behind a winning mark of 49-feet -1/4-inch in his final jump. It was the second-best wind-legal mark in the state this season. Smith was undefeated in the triple jump from April 12 to the end of the season, and a majority of the victories were by more than a foot.
Miramonte-Orinda, Basketball, JR.
Name any major women’s college basketball coach in the country and you can bet they know who Ionescu is. She’s a two-time gold medalist with USA Basketball Junior World Championship teams and in 2015 she led the Matadors to their second straight 30-win season. She averaged 23 points (760 points), 8.9 rebounds (294 rebounds), 7.3 assists (241 assists) and 5.0 steals (165 steals). She also shot 144-for-170 at the free-throw line (84.7 percent) and 86-for-220 on 3-pointers (39 percent). All were school single-season records.
1. IVAN RABB
Bishop O’Dowd-Oakland, Basketball, SR.
The top spot in this year’s Bay Area 75 is likely to officially be the last in a LONG list of accolades and honors earned over Rabb’s four-year Bishop O’Dowd career. And what a career it was “” brought perfectly to a close on March 29 when Rabb sank a free throw with 0.8 seconds left to lift the Dragons to a 65-64 overtime win in the CIF Open Div. State Championship. It was the program’s first state title since 1981. Rabb scored 19 points and grabbed 21 rebounds in the state final, and finished the year averaging 24.5 points, 16.3 rebounds and 4.5 blocks over 32 games.
Cal-Hi Sports named him Mr. State Basketball, the first North Coast Section player to earn the prestigious honor since Jason Kidd won it both in 1991 and 1992 at St. Joseph Notre Dame-Alameda. Over Rabb’s last three seasons, the Dragons went a combined 82-13 and were 63-1 against NorCal opponents. The lone loss was a CIF Open Div. playoff loss to Modesto Christian in March of 2013.
Rabb is set to continue his basketball career on the same floor that his high school one ended “” Cal’s Haas Pavilion. He is the centerpiece to a nationally-ranked recruiting class that will make the Golden Bears among the favorites in the Pac-12 for the 2015-16 season. After which, he could very well follow the path of the first athlete to top a Bay Area 75 “” Archbishop Mitty’s Aaron Gordon (No. 1, 2013). Gordon played one season at Arizona before being drafted No. 4 overall by the NBA’s Orlando Magic.
