Two of this week’s honorees are QB Kirk Simoni from East Union of Manteca and LB Leki Holani of Santa Margarita for their efforts in CIF section semifinals. Photos: Sean Kahler / Manteca Bulletin & smchs_football / Instagram.com.
One of this week’s honorees plays for the No. 1 ranked team in the state, another is a state reported leader and two more got the nod for huge outings against unbeaten foes. This week’s group hail from Rancho Santa Margarita, Los Angeles and Solana Beach in Southern California and Manteca, Orland and Ripon in Northern California.
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Notes: Next week’s installment will be the final one for the 2025 football season so get your nominations in to us for any top outings in CIF section championship games. We will continue to have flexibility to one of the honorees by calling it Multi-Purpose/Special Teams. Multi-Purpose is already a category for All State honors. For these honors, we also consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Defensive Player of the Week
Leki Holani (Santa Margarita, Rancho SM) Sr.
Our first stop this week takes us to the campus of the current No. 1 team in the state located in the southeastern part of Orange County not far from O’Neill Regional Park and just south of Trabuco Canyon. Holani has been the leading tackler for the Eagles this season and he was the leading tackler in last Friday’s 31-7 win over Lutheran of Orange in the CIF Southern Section D1 semifinals.
It’s clearly been a group effort for the Santa Margarita defense, but perhaps the No. 1 reason for the ascension of the program this season has been the front seven with Holani in the linebacking corps plus the addition of three defensive line transfers — Simote Katoanga, Isaia Vandermade and Manoah Faupusa — who showed their strength in the very first game holding Mission Viejo’s offense to just one score. Although the Eagles lost that game 7-3, they later topped Mater Dei of Santa Ana, 7-6, and Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth, 21-9.
In the victory over Orange Lutheran (one week after that team upset St. John Bosco of Bellflower), Holani rang up a team-high nine tackles with one sack and one forced fumble. He had 10 tackles and deflected a pass in overtime on fourth down that ended the game when Santa Margarita edged Corona Centennial, 33-27, in the team’s second game of the season. The Eagles will play Centennial on Friday at the Rose Bowl for the CIFSS D1 title. Leki had his best game of 15 tackles in the 7-6 win vs Mater Dei.
The 6-foot, 225-pound linebacker committed to Sacramento State last summer. He came into the season after earning first team All-Trinity League honors as a junior with 72 tackles, 19 for loss and six sacks.
The state’s reported rushing leader, Darnell Miller from Santee of Los Angeles, could play one, two or three more games this season. Photo: Santee HS Athletics / MaxPreps.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Offensive Player of Week
Darnell Miller (Santee, Los Angeles) Sr.
There is a Santana High in Santee, California, near San Diego but we’re going to Santee High in Los Angeles just south of the 10 freeway and east of the 110 freeway to find this week’s SoCal Offensive Player of the Week.
Miller has been a state stat star several times this season, but now it’s time for player of the week attention. He stayed very productive as a running back in Santee’s 24-8 victory last week against Contreras of Los Angeles in the CIF L.A. City D3 semifinals. Darnell took 29 carries for 311 yards and four touchdowns. It was his third game with more than 300 yards rushing this season with the high game of 513 yards and five TDs in a win vs Jefferson being enough for the state record book.
For the season, Miller also raised his totals to 2,796 yards rushing and 31 TDs. The yardage ranks No. 1 in California and is high enough for the all-time state list. Interestingly, it’s not yet a school record since in 2018 the Falcons had Joseph Todd who rushed for 3,315 yards in 15 games. Todd’s total also is the best ever from the L.A. City Section.
Two others not far behind Miller — Oakdale’s Wes Burford and Orosi’s Jason De La Cruz — also are on teams going for CIF section titles this weekend so there is no guarantee that Miller will end up as the overall state rushing leader. His team at Santee (9-4) is playing Hawkins of L.A. (10-2) for the L.A. City D3 title on Friday at Birmingham Charter. The season didn’t end for him last week and we’ll see what happens this week.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Special Teams/Multi-Purpose Player of the Week
Brady Berg (Santa Fe Christian, Solana Beach) Jr.
There are a number of versatile, multi-purpose standout players for this Santa Fe Christian team, which improved to 12-0 last week with a 35-20 win against Scripps Ranch of San Diego in the CIF San Diego Section D2 semifinals. Berg is the one being singled out as a way to provide some attention to one of just 12 teams in the state that are still unbeaten entering section championship weekend.
In the Eagles’ semifinal triumph, Brady had two catches for 40 yards and one TD, scored on a 7-yard run and on defense he had 10 tackles plus one interception. This honor also comes after Berg had 16 tackles on defense in a 17-9 win over St. Augustine of San Diego. Brady also leads the team in rushing TDs on the season with seven.
Steele Canyon of Spring Valley (9-3) will be the opponent for Santa Fe Christian in this weekend’s championship game. Berg, who has committed to Duke for lacrosse and is regarded as a four-star recruit in that sport, would probably love to add a shoutout to the team’s other top players, including junior QB Dax Labrum, senior TE/DE Jairus Bolden, senior LB/ATH Cole Hajjar and junior WR/DB Chase Woolley.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Offensive Player of the Week
Kirk Simoni (East Union, Manteca) Sr.
It’s a strange week in the San Joaquin County community of Manteca (in between Stockton and Modesto off Highway 99 if you don’t know). The best team in town, Manteca High, has been as high as No. 22 in the state, but its season ended last week with a loss to St. Mary’s of Stockton in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D2 semifinals. Two others are still going after winning against unbeaten opponents in lower divisions of the SJS playoffs.
We first land at East Union of Manteca, which lost in high-scoring Valley Oak League games to Manteca, Oakdale and Central Catholic of Modesto. Now playing in the SJS D4 playoffs, though, the Lancers (9-3) have found their sweet spot. With their quarterback leading the way, they upset defending champion and previously unbeaten Twelve Bridges of Lincoln, 61-55, last Friday up at Twelve Bridges.
East Union head coach Jason Stock has been singing the praises of Simoni all season and he’ll be singing them louder after last week’s game. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior with a 4.0 GPA and who plays basketball and baseball connected on 26 of 35 passes for 339 yards and four TDs vs the Raging Rhinos plus he rushed for another score and had 24 yards on three carries. It was one of those games in which the last team with the ball likely was going to win and that was the case as Simoni fired a 3-yard TD pass to Jackson Fay (one of the top receivers by yards and catches in the section) with just seven seconds left.
Simoni didn’t play in the loss to Manteca, but he did in the losses to Oakdale (71-55) and Central Catholic (61-29). The team enters the D4 section final this week vs Roseville with 629 points scored on the season. Simoni has had three 300-yard games passing and raised his totals to 2,211 yards passing and 41 TDs with at least one game still to go. He’s also rushed for 275 yards and six scores.
Mason Tameling racked up more than 400 yards of offense and accounted for seven TDs in Ripon Christian’s win vs Liberty Ranch of Galt. Photo: Jonamar Jacinto / Manteca Bulletin.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Special Teams/Multi-Purpose Player of the Week
Mason Tameling (Ripon Christian, Ripon) Sr.
Just a few miles north of Manteca along Highway 99 and right alongside the road travelers can see the two high school stadiums of Ripon Christian and Ripon High literally next to each other. Our NorCal Offensive Player of the Week also wasn’t the only local player to lead a team in a high-scoring CIF Sac-Joaquin Section playoff win last week over an opponent that was undefeated entering the night.
Tameling is a senior standout for the Knights who had a memorable outing in a 52-49 victory against Liberty Ranch of Galt in the D6 semifinals. He had 278 yards passing in a win in October vs Ripon, but really had to let it fly for Ripon Christian to outlast the super-effective Wing-T offense that Liberty Ranch has had all season. Mason ended with 15 completions in 25 attempts for 384 yards passing and five touchdowns. With 44.3 seconds left, he connected with teammate Daniel Lambdin on a 10-yard TD pass the proved to be the game-winner.
To be multi-purpose for these honors, however, requires more and that happened with Tameling in this game as he added nine carries for 49 yards rushing and two scores plus he sometimes has been the team’s kicker and he was 7-for-7 on PATs and made a field goal. For points that he accounted for, it came out to all 52 of Ripon Christian’s points on the night.
For the season entering this week’s D6 section title game, Tameling and the Knights will be big underdogs vs league rival Sonora (which had 55-14 win against them earlier this season). Regardless, he will have 1,734 yards passing and 22 TDs and 268 yards rushing and 10 TDs as season totals. It appears as if he doesn’t kick in too many games but has 17 kicking points on the season as well.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Defensive Player of the Week
Ivan Velasquez (Orland) Sr.
For our final stop this week we head up north on I-5 past Sacramento and past Woodland, past Williams and past Willows and land at the Glenn County seat town of Orland (which isn’t as far north as Corning and Red Bluff). The football team won a CIF state title in a lower division three years ago and is looking to win a third CIF Northern Section D3 title in the last four years in a matchup later this week with unbeaten Gridley.
The Trojans are known for their running quarterback, Luke Schager, on offense, who has been a NorCal player of the week before. This week, though, we’re going with Ivan for defense. In last week’s 20-16 victory over defending D3 section champion Lassen of Susanville, the 5-foot-8, 180-pound senior was like a Tasmanian devil roaming around the field getting tackles. He ended with a season-high of 19 tackles on the night.
Velasquez had 13 tackles earlier this season in a win vs Shasta of Redding. He also had 10 in a 29-26 loss to Gridley. For the season, Ivan has 107 tackles, eight tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks. He and Schager will obviously have to be at their best to reverse the earlier loss to Gridley.
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
