Sportstars
2024 AAU Girls’ Volleyball Nationals Championships Wave 1 Top Teams
This year’s Association of the American Universities (AAU) Girls Junior National Championship for volleyball is in full swing. Held in Orlando, Florida at the Orange County Convention Center, the championship takes place from June 13 through June 28. The volleyball championship include seven divisions. This includes the Open Division—the... Read more
Streak Smarts
A 50-plus Game Win Streak Has Chino Hills Boys Hoops In Rare Territory    Win streak records are especially fun to keep track of because when challenging teams come along over the years — and there aren’t many — it’s natural to relive those moments and bring back those... Read more
 Folsom Graduate Jake Browning Has A Chance To Join A Very Short List of NorCal Heisman Trophy Winners
   Folsom Graduate Jake Browning Has A Chance To Join A Very Short List of NorCal Heisman Trophy Winners    Northern California didn’t have much of a connection to the Heisman Trophy for the first 30 years in which college football‘s most prestigious award was handed out, but then... Read more
Timing & Impact: The Science Of Covers
   It can be quite a thrill to be featured on the cover of a magazine, whether it’s a regional/statewide high school sports publication like SportStars, or Time Magazine.    Former Pitman-Turlock three-sport standout Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers was on the cover of Time in late... Read more
A Spike In VB Rankings
   Girls volleyball is back. Well, not really, but as a sport in which Cal-Hi Sports will be offering a state ranking it is.    One of the main reasons we’re re-firing a State Top 20 each week, beginning Sept. 21, is that it’s part of a further evolution... Read more
Decade Dash: Racing To Be Teams Of The ’10s
   One of my favorite state record files to update each summer is the one in which it’s determined which schools around the state have the best records in football during the current decade.    When the decade is young, it’s not that difficult to piece together two or... Read more
Sweeney Shining
By MARK TENNIS | Special To SportStars This year’s family vacation had a definite San Francisco Giants’ theme with four games seen in a two-week span, but it was watching a different Giants’ game on the tube that brought the biggest smile to my face. Sure, the Giants struggled... Read more
Cal-Hi Sports Ms. Softball 2016: Nicole Bates
Ceres’ senior shortstop becomes the Sac-Joaquin Section’s first Ms. Softball in more than a decade.  By Mark Tennis | Cal-Hi Sports    Ceres High infielder Nicole Bates nudged Gatorade National Player of the Year Madilyn Nickles of Merced for top local honor in Stanislaus/Merced County and did the same... Read more
Potent Pairs: NorCal’s Most Dominant Teammate Duos
   Dynamic duos in sports can be a corny phrase, but when they are two players from the same team it can create all sorts of possibilities.    At the high school level, I was reminded of the greatest duo from any one high school team that I’ve ever... Read more
State Breakdown: Bringing Out The Best
   For some, high school football is a year-round activity. For others, it doesn’t come into focus until teams start to practice in the August heat. But for me, the start of the next high school football season has always been the Northern California Nike Football showcase event that... Read more
NorCal’s New #1: Marin Catholic Jared Goff Joins Elite Company
   It really wasn’t that long ago when Jared Goff was preparing for his junior season as a somewhat unknown quarterback at Marin Catholic High in Kentfield.    In that junior season in 2011, however, Goff broke out in a big way for the Wildcats and passed for more... Read more
Hoop Dreams Ivan Rabb
It would have been nearly impossible for someone to have written a script that ended the 2015 California high school basketball season quite like it did. To refresh, Bishop O’Dowd High’s Ivan Rabb needed to make a free throw. In double-overtime with less than one second on the clock and... Read more