Madeline Lawson pitched Pleasant Grove to the 2023 Delta League softball championship.

 We are at the end of the 2023 calendar year, so it is time once again to recap the highlights of the past 12 months.

 Franklin baseball wins Section, Delta League championships

Clearly the top baseball team last spring was the Franklin Wildcats. Led by Mississippi State-bound first baseman/pitcher Nolan Stevens, the Wildcats easily won the Delta League championship with a 17-1 record then allowed only two runs during the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Division I playoffs. They defeated Whitney, 6-2, for the championship, the first in school history. Nic Abraham, who in the fall signed a National Letter of Intent to play collegiately at Tennessee, tossed a two hitter. He was the team ace with a 10-0 record in 12 games. His ERA was a 0.61.

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Nolan Stevens pitched, hit and ran Franklin to a 17-1 record and a Delta League baseball championship in 2023. He’s now playing at Mississippi State University.

Franklin’s season ended in the semi-finals of the CIF NorCal Championships when they dropped a 6-5 decision to eventual regional winner De LaSalle.

PG Golfer Singh scores a 60 and a 29

Pleasant Grove sophomore Gianna Singh lit up the Arcade Creek Golf Course. Sept. 11 to the tune of nine birdies, two eagles and one bogey enroute to a 12-under-par 60. She and her talented teammates easily won the first Delta League Center match of the season outscoring second place St. Francis by 46 strokes.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet, but I’m really excited,” Singh told the Citizen Sept. 12. “My putter was really working yesterday. My driver, my 3-wood, were really good. Everything was working good.”

Singh’s mark is not only a personal best score, but it may be an 18-hole record by a California high school golfer. It likely is a record in the Sac-Joaquin Section.

Keeping pace with her teammate that day were junior Petra Yee who carded a five-under-par 67 and junior Sophie Cook registered an even-par 72. It was Cook who took the limelight on Sept. 13 in a 9-hole match with Davis. Her putt for an eagle on No. 9 rimmed out for what would have been a 29. Cook’s six-under-par 30 paced the Eagles as they fired a team score of 185.

And,  Singh wasn’t done. On Sept. 18, she did something that few, if any, have done - score

a 29 in a nine-hole match. She did that on WildHawk Golf Club, that’s seven strokes under par. Her scorecard actually had a bogey scribbled on it, too. Singh used eagles on the par five third hole and one on the par four fifth hole to more than overcome the five on the par four No. 2. On No. 5 she drove the green and made the putt for a two. Tack on birdies on No. 1, 6, 8 and 9 and you get the 29.

Monterey Trail goes undefeated forever in Metro Conference football

Monterey Trail said goodbye to the Metro Conference this past fall. The Mustangs along with Laguna Creek will return to the Delta League for the 2024-25 school year.

But in the six-year run, the Mustangs never lost a Metro Conference football game. This past season, though, they had a couple close ones. They had to go two overtimes with Laguna Creek on Sept. 15 before pulling out a 41-35 win.

On Oct. 20, Grant scored with seconds left in the game to narrow the Mustang lead to 35-34. The Pacers went for two and running back Wayshawn Parker, who transferred to Grant from Elk Grove during the summer, dropped the ball at the line of scrimmage and Monterey Trail recovered and sealed the win.

Monterey Trail finished the season with a 7-3 mark and had a four-seed in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs. They lost to Inderkum, 50-21, to end the season.

Gudel hired at Franklin, leads softball to 15 straight wins

A former sports editor of the Elk Grove Citizen, Jon Gudel has been a public information officer for several years with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Management. However, on the side he’s been coaching his daughter Hayleigh’s softball teams.

With her now in high school, Gudel was pegged by athletic director Mike Cody to head up the Wildcats’ varsity softball program. And, almost magically, the players responded to set a school record with 15 straight wins to start the year. Franklin won just 12 games total the year before.

They ended the season with a 22-7 mark, losing to Oak Ridge in the Division I playoffs.

Pleasant Grove won the Delta League this year with a 24-7 overall record, 10-2 in the league, under coach Brian Cherry. The Eagles made it to the Division I semi-finals.

Herd wrestling wins 20th straight Delta League title

Elk Grove dispatched the wrestling squads from Sheldon and Franklin Jan. 24 in a double dual match to win, for the 20th straight season, the Delta League championship. 

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The top three local wrestlers in 2023 were Section Masters champions (from left) Nolan Frank and Octavio Negrete of Elk Grove and Delta League champion Noah Daniels of Sheldon.

Elk Grove opened the evening Jan. 24 by defeating Sheldon, 47-28, to set the stage for a dual match with Franklin for the league championship. Elk Grove wrapped up the league championship by defeating Franklin, 41-24.

The Herd moved on to the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Team Dual championship at Lincoln High School in Stockton. They were defeated, though, in the opening match of the Team Duals.

 League realignment places all EGUSD schools, minus two, in Delta

The plan calls for the Delta League to be made up of seven of the nine Elk Grove Unified high schools beginning with the 2024-2025 school year. Monterey Trail and Laguna Creek would be moved out of the Metro Conference and join Elk Grove, Franklin, Pleasant Grove, Cosumnes Oaks and Sheldon in the Delta, according to this proposal.

The other two EGUSD high schools, Florin and Valley, would remain in the Greater Sacramento League along with Foothill, Hiram Johnson, Natomas and West Campus. In this new proposal, Burbank would leave the Metro Conference and join the GSL along with Rio Linda to make it an eight-team league, as well.

This proposal also sends current Delta League members Davis and St. Francis/Jesuit to be a part of the Sierra Foothill League alongside Del Oro, Folsom, Granite Bay, Oak Ridge, Rocklin and Whitney.

The reasoning for this move, as explained by Section officials on Jan. 19, was that Davis along with St. Francis and Jesuit field freshmen teams in just about all their sports, as do most of the SFL schools. Freshman teams have become rare amongst the Elk Grove schools.

Four Local Wrestlers Win SJS Masters Championships

Three Elk Grove High School wrestlers, Octavio Negrete, Bianca Pesole and Nolan Frank, along with Monterey Trail’s Elizabeth Reynaga-Nunez, won the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters Championship at their weight class Feb. 23 at Stockton Arena. For Frank, it’s two years in a row grabbing the first-place medal at 220 pounds at the Masters. Negrete won the championship

at 113 pounds. In the girls competition, Pesole grabbed first place at 170 pounds. Reynaga-Nunez won the 189-pound championship. Since the installation of the Section Masters tournament, the only other Elk Grove grappler to win back-to-back championships was

Martin Ramirez in 2010 and 2011.

Frank, Bianca Pesole and Loretta Lopez along with Laguna Creek’s Zack Hoover

picked up medals in the final day of the CIF State Wrestling Championships in Bakersfield.

Frank followed up his second consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section Masters championship the week

prior with a fifth-place finish. Pesole and Lopez both wrestled tough competition to each earn a fourth-place medal. Hoover finished in eighth place at 106 pounds. 

Franklin girls soccer win SJS Div. I championship 

The Franklin girls soccer team won its third Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship Feb. 23 with a 4-0 win over McClatchy on a cold, windy night at Cosumnes River College.

Senai Rogers scored two goals and had two assists to lead Franklin. The Wildcats were coached

by Aaron Sulamo, assisted by Jessalyn Sulamo, Phillip Waelbrock and Ryan Fernald. Franklin was 19-4-3 this season.

Track and Field Highlights

Stephen Dahdouh, a hurdler at Pleasant Grove High School, won the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Division I and the Section Masters track meets in the 110-meter hurdles.

Ian Dossman of Franklin was a two-event winner May 13 at the Sac-Joaquin Section's Division I meet. He won the 200 meters with a time of 21.42 seconds and the 100 meters with a mark of 10.53 seconds. Pleasant Grove's talented hurdler Stephen Dahdouh was a winner at that meet. He won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 13.98 seconds. In the 300-meter hurdles his time was 39.71 seconds, good for second place.

The next week both repeated their winning accomplishments at the Section Masters Championships in Davis, along with Pleasant Grove pole vaulter Abigail Wagner, Franklin triple jumper Valentina Veal, Wildcats’ 400 meter runner Ihe Okoh and Lily Escorcia, a 800-meter run champion from Elk Grove High School.

At the CIF State Track and Field meet, Dahdouh was the only Elk Grove-area track athlete to medal in the finals of the two-day event. He finished third in the 110-meter hurdles. In the boys 200 meter dash, Ian Dossman of Franklin qualified for the finals and finished fifth in a time of 21.27 seconds. Laguna Creek’s 4x400 meter relay team finished in eighth place with a time of 3:18.40.