Two of our first players of the week for the 2026 softball/baseball season are both sophomores — Tatum McAfee of Castaic and Brogan Witcher from Liberty of Bakersfield. Photos: Castaic HS Athletics & Liberty HS Athletics / MaxPreps.com..
We’ve reached that time of the year when this feature switches from basketball to baseball/softball. For this first fearsome foursome, the honorees hail from Bakersfield and El Dorado Hills for Northern California while for Southern California they’re from Monrovia and Castaic.
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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 Southern California
Softball Player of the Week
Tatum McAfee (Castaic) Soph.
As we say in many of the writeups of these honorees, one of the reasons we produce them is because we are always tracking possible additions to our exclusive all-time state records. We’ve found one right away this season in softball and it’s been accomplished by this sophomore from Castaic.
McAfee already had a pitching outing of 14 strikeouts with two hits allowed in a 9-2 win even earlier this season vs Burbank, but what she did last week to lead the Coyotes past Chatsworth, 8-0, is what makes the record book. Castaic’s stats for Tatum had her with 21 strikeouts in the seven-inning game. She didn’t strike out every batter she faced with two hits and two walks allowed, but 21 strikeouts for seven innings will get McAfee a listing in the state record category of most strikeouts in a seven-inning game. We have two with 22 (third strikes dropped) and there are at least 18 who have 21. Among those that Tatum is joining on that all-time list with 21 Ks in seven innings are some of the all-time greats, such as Lisa Fernandez, Michelle Granger and Monica Abbott.
In the very same game in which McAfee had the 21 strikeouts pitching, she also went 4-for-4 at the plate with a double, two runs scored and two RBI. For the season so far for the Coyotes (who are 4-1 heading into a league-opening game on Thursday vs Saugus), Tatum is batting .647 on 11 hits in 19 at-bats with seven RBI. She also is at 2-0 pitching with a 0.00 ERA plus 70 strikeouts in 29 innings.
Troy Grise of Monrovia makes a play at shortstop during game last season. Photo: SGV Whittier Prep Sports Zone.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Troy Grise (Monrovia) Jr.
There may not be a high school in the state with the beautiful front entrance, complete with a prominent tower, quite like Monrovia. It sits in a location just north of the 210 freeway in the city of Monrovia with the city of Arcadia on the southside of the freeway.
It’s there at Monrovia where we find one of the state’s hottest hitting baseball players to start the 2026 season. There’s certainly been no greasy, slippery hands on Grise’s bat. He’s gripped it right to the tune of a .636 average with five homers and 18 RBI to help the Wildcats get out to a 5-2 start.
In a 11-3 win last week against Righetti of Santa Maria, Troy went 3-for-4 with a homer, double and three RBI. He followed that up by going 2-for-4 with a homer, three runs scored and four RBI to lead Monrovia past Marshall of Los Angeles, 16-3. Grise belted a pair of homers in a loss to San Marino during the previous week.
Since the No. 1 player listed on MaxPreps’ early-season list of state leaders is from an obvious typo (eight homers in one game), Grise’s total of five would appear to be the most of all reported players in the state. Troy also plays football at Monrovia and should be one of the top returning receivers next season in the San Gabriel Valley.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Baseball Player of the Week
Brogan Witcher (Liberty, Bakersfield) Soph.
For our first NorCal honoree for baseball this season, we first have to mention again that Bakersfield (and all schools in the CIF Central Section) are considered to be NorCal and not SoCal no matter how many Dodger fans are in the city. It’s at a school north of the 58 highway, north of the Kern River and west of downtown that won a CIF state football title three years ago.
It’s at Liberty where there’s a sophomore baseball player out to a mammoth start to this season. Witcher is indeed a highly-ranked pitcher, but he’s been hot as a batter as well in helping the Patriots get out to a 3-1 start.
In a 13-3 victory last week against Central East of Fresno, Brogan brought in four runs and went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBI. Later in the week, Witcher homered again and finished 2-for-4 with five RBI plus in that game game he pitched three innings with no hits allowed and six strikeouts.
While Brogan is batting .500 with two homers and 10 RBI in his first four games, he also has a three-hitter with 15 strikeouts in a 3-0 pitching win vs Clovis East and it’s the pitching that already has captured the attention of MLB scouts. In a recent top 10 ranking of top sophomore prospects in the nation by Perfect Game, Witcher was No. 9 (one of just three from California that high). And that was done before this surge of his to start the current season.
Oak Ridge standout Brooklyn Paratore is one of the top-ranked catchers in the nation. Photo: Oak Ridge Softball / Facebook.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Softball Player of the Week
Brooklyn Paratore
(Oak Ridge, El Dorado Hills) Sr.
For our final stop in our first week of these honors, we head east out Highway 50 out past Folsom and over the hill to El Dorado Hills where Oak Ridge High has been a softball powerhouse the past few seasons. The back-to-back NorCal D1 runner-up is out to a 6-0 start and likely will be in the top five of our first regular season State TOP 25 rankings, which will be out later this week.
One of the main reasons for Oak Ridge’s strong start has been the play of Paratore, returning catcher who has signed with Washington. Paratore also has been on the USA U15 and U18 national teams so pretty much anything she does on the softball field isn’t a surprise.
Paratore hammered a pair of homers and went 2-for-2 with four runs scored and three RBI last week in a 10-1 triumph against Vista del Lago of Folsom. In her other game last week, Brooklyn had two homers as well plus she finished 3-for-3 with a double, four runs scored and three RBI to lead the Trojans past Granite Bay, 14-4.
Paratore and the Trojans play next on Wednesday vs Whitney of Rocklin, which will be their second Sierra Foothill League game. Whitney already has a win this season vs Del Oro of Loomis, which is the team that beat Oak Ridge in an all-SFL NorCal D1 final to complete the 2025 season.
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
