
Devin Moody (left) from Manual Arts has made L.A. City Section followers grab for the record books in last two weeks. At right is outstanding guard Leilani Olanolan of Riverbank (averaging nearly 20 ppg). Photos: Benjamin Royer / X.com & Andy Alfaro / The Modesto Bee.
We begin with tracking the boys basketball career state scoring record that should be falling soon to Santa Maria St. Joseph standout Tounde Yessoufou. He and team will face the tough defense of state No. 9 Salesian of Richmond on Saturday. Devin Moody of L.A. Manual Arts also has been on a rampage over the last week, including game of 64 points that has record book implications. Among the girls, it’s a mix of milestone outings from Lauren Harris of Faith Christian (Yuba City), Leilani Olanolan of Riverbank, Millie Rojas from Monache of Porterville and many more.
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(They are not duplicated in the weekly honor roll)
(CIF Central Section historian Bob Barnett contributed to this report.)
(New Cal-Hi Sports intern Isai Gutierrez of Manteca also contributed to this report.)
(Through some games of Tuesday, Jan. 21)
If one looks at the next five or six games on the schedule for state No. 4 St. Joseph of Santa Maria, it remains likely the all-time state career scoring record of 3,462 points set in 2004 by DeMarcus Nelson of Sacramento Sheldon will fall to the Knights’ Tounde Yessoufou on Saturday, Feb. 1 at home vs Weston Ranch of Stockton.
We saw Tounde play last Monday in a 67-62 win vs Modesto Christian at the MLK Classic in Concord in which he scored 25 points. He also had 27 points on Tuesday night in a league win to put his career total at 3,313 points. He needs just six more on Thursday in a league game at home vs Arroyo Grande to move up to No. 5 on the all-time list and then just 22 more to get past Logan Kilbert from Sierra of Tollhouse for No. 4. That also would give Yessofou the CIF Central Section record.

We’re all in on the state career scoring record watch for St. Joseph of Santa Maria’s Tounde Yessoufou. Photo: Mark Tennis.
State records will not be on the minds of the Knights on Saturday when they face state No. 9 Salesian of Richmond at the Crush in the Valley event to be played at Contra Costa College. The next two games after that will be next week — Tuesday at San Luis Obispo and then Friday at Atascadero.
St. Joseph head coach Tom Mott indicated on Monday at De La Salle that he will not leave Tounde in a game to set the record. Still, he’s averaging between 25 and 30 points per game and needs 150 to break Nelson’s record. And it would also be a natural preference to have the record get broken at home and not on the road. The opponents that the Knights are playing next week does give the school and the coach some flexibility to plan it out so that the record could be broken at home on Feb. 1. The next game after that also will be on the road at Templeton with the regular season ending with games on Feb. 7 at home vs Mission College Prep and then on the road at Arroyo Grande.
Hopefully, there will be no tweaked ankles or other setbacks as Yessoufou pursues the record. And it’s obvious that the bigger priority for the player, coach and teammates is to be rolling into the CIF Central Section playoffs and not slip up like the Knights did in last year’s section final. The CIF prefers not to have a Santa Maria school in the north for its regional playoffs, but balancing out the two north-south brackets is also perhaps a bigger priority and sticking a state No. 4 team in the south with all of the other powerhouses from the CIF Southern Section wouldn’t make much sense.