Two of this week’s honorees are senior Nayeli Gil-Silva from Alisal of Salinas (left) and senior Tevaris Green from Torrey Pines of San Diego. Photos: Alisal High Athletics / MaxPreps.com & TPHS_Basketball / X.com.
With everyone in the state now in playoff mode, we’re careful with these honors to get them out earlier in the week before anyone plays (and perhaps suffers a season-ending loss). This week’s best are from Modesto and Salinas in Northern California while for Southern California we hit San Diego and Rowland Heights.
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Notes: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Player of the Week
Nayeli Gil-Silva (Alisal, Salinas) Sr.
For our first stop this week, it’s in Monterey County at Alisal High located a few miles to the west of where Highway 101 slices through the southern part of the city. The girls team at the school is having a historically great season at 22-2 entering the CIF Central Coast Section playoffs, but the CCS is the realm of national powerhouse Archbishop Mitty where it’s easy for any other top teams to get lost.
That’s one reason why we wanted to put the spotlight this week on Alisal. The other is to highlight the exploits of the team’s senior guard. Gil-Silva has been the team’s leading scorer, rebounder, assist maker and steals getter on the season and put up big totals in each of the team’s two final regular season games last week.
First, in a 69-17 victory against Monterey, Nayeli netted 31 points with six rebounds, three assists and five steals. Then, in a 52-35 triumph vs Hollister, Gil-Silva didn’t get 30 or more again but still had 27 points with four rebounds and three steals. For the season, she’s averaging 17.5 points with 5.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 4.5 steals per game.
In the win vs Hollister, Nayeli also made school history by moving past the school record for most career points. She probably would have broken that record much earlier, but missed the a major part of last season with a knee injury.
The Trojans will find out their first-round opponent in the CCS playoffs later this week as there were still regular season games to be played early this week.
Curtis Harmon from Beyer of Modesto puts up a shot during a recent game. Photo: Andy Alfaro / The Modesto Bee.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Boys Player of the Week
Curtis Harmon (Beyer, Modesto) Jr.
A school located in the northeast corner of Modesto that always makes us think of actor alums Jeremy Renner and Timothy Olyphant is where we go to check out this week’s NorCal boys hoops honoree. Curtis is a 6-foot-6 forward who throws down thunderous dunks with ease and who already has been All-District by the Modesto Bee as a sophomore with two more All-District teams to go that he can be on.
Harmon was let loose last week in Beyer’s final regular season game vs Ceres and he already had broken the school record with 42 points before the end of the third quarter (he didn’t play in the fourth) in a 101-54 rout. Beyer won its 15th straight game (which is a school record) and completed a 14-0 run through the Western Athletic Conference. The Patriots also will take a 22-6 record into a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D3 playoff game on Wednesday vs Oakdale (which also is 22-6 overall).
The bad news with Harmon is that his game-by-game totals are not reported on MaxPreps. The good news is that many of his outings are documented on Facebook. He’s obviously averaging well more than 20 ppg and that would be close to the 23.4 per game mark he was reported with on the All-District team. Curtis had 20 points and 10 rebounds in a win vs Pacheco of Los Banos, he had 18 points in a win vs Central Valley of Ceres, 22 points and 17 rebounds in a win vs Livington and 28 points with 15 rebounds in a win vs Lathrop.
Earlier this season, Harmon, who plays for the famed Oakland Soldiers AAU program, was MVP at the Ron Peterson RBK tourney and he was all-tourney at the Central Catholic Gallo Invitational.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Boys Player of the Week
Tevaris Green (Torrey Pines, San Diego) Sr.
Longtime head coach John Olive’s program at Torrey Pines, which is in the northern part of the city and has been the host school of one of state’s best holiday tournaments also for many years, is where we land in searching for this week’s SoCal boys player of the week.
The Falcons needed overtime last Friday to beat La Costa Canyon of Carlsbad, 68-55, to clinch the 28th league title in school history and the 22nd won under Olive, who has been the school’s head coach since 1998 and should start to approach his 700th win by the end of next season.
But this writeup obviously isn’t about Coach Olive. It’s about the team’s 6-foot-4 senior wing who has been on a tear in recent weeks. In the big win vs La Costa Canyon, Green led the way with 30 points, six rebounds and five assists.
It was also what Tevaris did in his game earlier in the week against Carlsbad that also made him hard to beat for our weekly honor. In a 75-63 victory vs the Lancers, Green set the school record for points scored in Olive’s years with 42. He broke the previous best of 41 set in 2008 by James Rahon. Tevaris made 12 of 16 shots from the field (two three-pointers) and was 12 of 13 from the line.
For the season, Green (also has 3.8 GPA) has seen his average now get close to 20 ppg (19.9) plus he’s averaging 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. The Falcons (16-12 overall) will now be heading into the CIF San Diego Section D1 playoffs as the No. 2 seed and are playing El Camino of Oceanside (13-14) on Wednesday in the first round.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Girls Player of the Week
Isabella Tran (Rowland, Rowland Heights) Jr.
For our final stop this week, we head south of the 60 freeway and west of the 57 just north of the Orange County line and we land in L.A. County and in the southeastern part of the San Gabriel Valley. It’s there where we find our SoCal girls recipient.
Tran has been one of the top players in the SGV all season long and opened the CIF Southern Section D6 playoffs with a pair of high-scoring outings. She began by pouring in 34 points and collecting 11 rebounds in a 60-50 victory over Whittier High. Up next in the second-round of the playoffs Isabella led the Raiders with 32 points and 10 rebounds as they ran past Liberty of Winchester.
In the quarterfinals of the playoffs on Wednesday, Hillcrest of Riverside (17-13) will be opposition for Rowland (16-12). Tran has improved her scoring average to 23.7 ppg and she also is reported at 5.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.3 steals per game. Her previous season high of 38 points came in a league win against Northview of Covina.
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.
