
New state career scoring record holder Tounde Yessoufou of Santa Maria St. Joseph holds certificate from Cal-Hi Sports, which has maintained California high school state records in five sports for more than 45 years, shortly after it was presented to him. Photo: Mark Tennis.
St. Joseph of Santa Maria four-year star moves to No. 1 on the all-time state career scoring list with 30 points in a win on Saturday at the school’s gym vs Weston Ranch of Stockton. We have all of the record-breaking details, what is coming next for the Knights, who is next in line to break the record and have done a special update of our all-time state career scoring list.
TO SEE UPDATED ALL-TIME STATE CAREER SCORING LIST AFTER THIS WEEK’S GAMES (GOLD CLUB), CLICK HERE.
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FOR STORY WHEN RECORD WAS LAST BROKEN IN 2004, CLICK HERE.
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Everything fell into place in the last few weeks for Tounde Yessoufou from St. Joseph of Santa Maria in a quest to break the Cal-Hi Sports state record for most points in a career. It all came together on Saturday night inside the school’s gym as he scored 30 points and moved past the previous all-time best of 3,462 points set in 2004 by DeMarcus Nelson from Sheldon of Sacramento in a 93-62 win over Weston Ranch of Stockton.
Yessoufou needed 26 points to move past the record that the former Duke standout had during his years at both Sheldon and Vallejo. There were two early offensive fouls that he was called for that had some in the gym getting nervous, but Tounde had 11 points at halftime and began chipping away at the points he needed in the third quarter. He connected for a couple of three-pointers in that quarter that helped him get to 23 for the game and just needed three to go for the new record.

Teammates and coaches surround Tounde within seconds after he scored the points that put him in front of the previous state record. Photo: Mark Tennis.
With the game well in-hand over the Cougars, a team that is used to playing highly ranked opponents such as the Knights (who came into the game at No. 4 in the Cal-Hi Sports State TOP 30 rankings), the early moments of the fourth quarter saw Tounde miss on four three-point shots before he scored on a lay-up. He broke the record on another inside basket in which he also was fouled. Yessoufou was immediately mobbed by teammates and coaches and after a short delay he made the extra free throw. After one more basket, that gave him 30 for the game and 3,467 for his career.
“It was a weird game (trying to score a certain amount of points), but it was exciting to see my teammates pulling for me,” Yessoufou said after he was part of a post-game ceremony, after he signed many autographs, posed for many photos and spent time in the locker room getting changed. “This is going to be one of those things I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.”
“It was just obvious to everyone here what we were trying to get done in this game so there was not much of a flow to it,” said St. Joseph head coach Tom Mott. “I just think about all of history and all of the great players from our state. In the big picture, it’s really very special. A lot of people haven’t been able to see him doing all these great things over the past four years.”
Many folks who were there to see the special accomplishment on Saturday in Santa Maria have no idea how lucky they were to have been able to experience it. When the previous record was set in 2004, Cal-Hi Sports was there for that as well. It wasn’t in a home gym with a ceremony that was able to be done afterward. Instead, it was in a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section playoff game at the old ARCO Arena. It was even possible that Nelson’s record could have been broken in a loss. Yes, family members and fans wore t-shirts with the number needed to break the record. Yes, there were hugs and some tears. But there also were other fans from other schools there and other playoff results to report on.
Yessoufou sat in a chair by himself on the court after the game and in the dark as more than a dozen current and former teammates gave congratulatory greetings in a video. He then spoke to the crowd and thanked his teammates and coaches and was presented with a framed certificate by Cal-Hi Sports making the record breaking accomplishment as official as it can be. A phone call that was posted on social media by DeMarcus Nelson also was played to the crowd.
“You should really be proud of this record, but don’t stop here,” Nelson said. “Congrats to the new all-time state scoring leader from the former record holder.”
If Cal-Hi Sports had made any comments to the crowd and to the new record holder, it would have named some of the other all-time great players from the state who are on the all-time state list (more than 2,300 points) that Tounde now sits on top of: Aaron Gordon, Jason Kidd, Jalen Green, Lonzo Ball, LiAngelo Ball, Jrue Holiday and DeMar DeRozan to name a few. And while it has been 21 years since the record has been broken, it also has only fallen six times in the last 50 years.
“It was a sign of respect to see (DeMarcus) do that,” Tounde said. “For him to offer congratulations means a lot.”
It also would have been stressed to the crowd that it’s not just the right thing to thank teammates for breaking a record like the one Yessoufou has set. For sure, teams that are able to go deep into the playoffs each year gives a player a lot more games and a lot more points that can be scored than teams that are not able to get those extra games.

Yessoufou speaks to the crowd inside the gym at St. Joseph during post-game ceremony. Photo: Mark Tennis.
“Basketball is not just yourself,” said Yessofou, who will play in college next season at Baylor. “I really mean it that this was for all 17 of us who were there tonight that I give this to them. It’s for all of us. All of us accomplished this.”
Tounde had a grin on his face for most of the post-game ceremony, but later told the media that “there was little tear inside me.” He added: “If we win state, you’ll see a lot more emotions from me.”
The Knights made it a 3-0 week with their win over Weston Ranch after two blowout wins in Mountain League play over San Luis Obispo and Atascadero. They began the week at 25-1 with just one loss to nationally ranked Calvary Christian Academy of Florida, which just lost its first game of the season on Friday to national power Montverde Academy (also of Florida). St. Joseph could very well move up from No. 4 to No. 3 in next week’s State TOP 30 since No. 3 St. John Bosco of Bellflower had a loss last week to Santa Margarita.
All of the Yessoufou record breaking and big wins in the last two weeks for the Knights over Modesto Christian and Salesian of Richmond is all designed to put together the strongest resume possible for the CIF to reward them with the top seed in the upcoming CIF NorCal Open Division playoffs. The south is where two-time defending CIF Open champ Harvard-Westlake along with No. 2 Roosevelt of Eastvale and St. John Bosco will be and that’s also where the Knights had to go last year after they were upset in the CIF Central Section D1 final by Clovis North. If there’s no upset this time, putting them in the north this time will absolutely and 100 percent make the most sense.
The momentous week for Tounde began on Monday when he was named to the 2024 McDonald’s All-American Game along with three other CIF players from the state: Brayden Burries of Roosevelt, Nik Khamenia of Harvard-Westlake and Alijah Arenas of Chatsworth, who likely also would have surpassed Nelson’s previous state record next season if he had not reclassified from the Class of 2026 to the Class of 2025.
A native of the West African nation of Benin, Tounde has only been playing basketball since he was nine or 10 years old. His mother, Bertrande Adingni, was in his thoughts nine hours away and the plan was to give her a call later in the evening.
Tounde still has three regular season games left, all of which will be Mountain League blowouts, and then the CIF Central Section D1 playoffs will start in two weeks.
When the season does end in March, Yessoufou will likely put 200 or more points between himself and the previous record. He has after all been averaging around 30 points per game since his freshman season.
Even that, though, isn’t very likely going to prevent Tounde from only holding on to the state record that he just set for not even one year. Current junior Jason Crowe Jr. of Inglewood has been on pace to score perhaps close to 4,000 points or more since he racked up 1,295 points in 36 games as a freshman two years ago at Lynwood (his former school).
“I know him well, he’s my brother and we play on the same club team,” Yessoufou said.
Even if it’s a short stay at the top of the list, no one will ever be able to take away the feat that the California all-time scoring record was once held by Tounde Yessoufou and his own band of brothers from St. Joseph High of Santa Maria. Congratulations from Cal-Hi Sports.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports