Local colleges: Freshman outfielder Carrillo shines for Fresno Pacific

A season that’s fallen short of expectation received a boost this week when Fresno Pacific freshman center fielder Leo Carrillo was named Pacific West Conference baseball Newcomer of the Week.

Carrillo, who earned All-Bee honors last season as a Hanford High senior, went 5 for 7 with two RBIs and two runs scored in a weekend doubleheader sweep of Holy Names, including a 4-for-4 performance in Game 2.

The Sunbirds snapped a four-game losing streak, beating Holy Names 4-2 and 13-8 in Oakland.

Carrillo’s big weekend continued a hot second half in which he has gone 33 for 54 while building a 14-game hitting streak, including a 3-for-4 day as the Sunbirds routed Holy Names 19-3 to open a doubleheader Wednesday that will complete the rain-interrupted series. He is hitting a team-leading .404 and leads PacWest hitters in conference games at .514.

▪ Seniors Wesley Coles (swimming) and Sarah Hill (track and field) were named Sunbirds of the Year – for athletes with high GPAs and sports excellence who also provide strong Christian witness and leadership examples – as Fresno Pacific celebrated the 2015-16 sports year with its annual awards banquet as a part of national student-athlete day.

Senior of the Year honors went to Preston Scott (baseball) and Hannah Butler (volleyball); Scholar of the Year to Cody Kinsman (cross country/track), David Maes (water polo) and Bissie DenHartog (volleyball); and Freshman of the Year to Austin Hussain (swimming) and Allie Austin (track and field).

Fresno State – Marvelle Harris, who set the Bulldogs’ career men’s basketball scoring record and earned Mountain West Conference Player of the Year honors while leading the team to a 25-10 record and the team’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2001, was named Player of the Year and MVP at the men’s basketball year-end banquet.

Others honored were Grant Shell (Teammate of the Year); Sam Bittner (Student-Athlete of the Year); Terrell Carter II (Bulldog of the Year); Jahmel Taylor (Coaches’ Award); Cezar Guerrero, Harris and Julien Lewis (Bulldog Awards for contributions to the program); Harris (2,031 points), Lewis (1,276) and Guerrero (1,147) as new members of the 2,000- and 1,000-point clubs; and Karachi Edo (Weight Room Award).

▪ Men’s and women’s cross country, women’s golf, soccer and women’s tennis posted the highest possible multiyear Academic Progress Rate score of 1,000 to earn NCAA Public Recognition Award status. The college governing body gives the awards to teams that post scores in the top 10 percent of their sport.

The APR is an annual scorecard of academic achievement calculated for all Division I teams. It is the third consecutive season that the women’s golf team was recognized for a perfect multi-year and the second straight for soccer and women’s tennis. The scores required to be in the top 10 ranged from 983 to 1,000, depending on the sport.

▪ Sophomore Mayar Sherif Ahmed is the Mountain West women’s tennis Player of the Week after going a combined 4-0 in No. 1 singles and doubles as the Bulldogs, up two spots to No. 37 in this week’s national rankings, swept then-No. 53 UNLV and San Diego State.

Ahmed is ranked 52nd in singles by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association and No. 24 in doubles with sister Rana Sherif Ahmed.The Bulldogs have won 15 straight conference matches dating to the 2012-13 season.

Junior colleges – Northern California eighth-ranked Fresno City (19-9, 14-2) is three up in the loss column over Reedley and Merced with eight games to go in the Central Valley Conference baseball race. The Rams defeated Taft 10-2 on Tuesday.

Sophomores Conly Biglione (.373 batting average) and Logan Poisall (22 RBIs) are leading the charge heading into the second game of the series with the Cougars (12-16, 5-11) on Thursday at 3 p.m. in Taft. Starters Justin Heskett (5-0, 2.85 ERA) and JJ Santa Cruz (5-2, 3.49) headline a pitching staff that has the state’s 12th best ERA at 3.21.

Reedley third baseman Sawyer Pittman, meanwhile, was named player of the week and Porterville’s Edgar Reyes pitcher of the week as CVC athletes swept NorCal honors awarded by the California Community College Baseball Coaches Association.

Pittman had a 24-game hitting streak that was finally snapped in a 5-4 victory over West Hills (4-24, 3-13) on Tuesday. In a three-game series against Sequoias last week, he went 7 for 14 with a double, four runs and three RBIs. The No. 16 Tigers are now 18-10 and 11-5.

Reyes pitched a five-hitter with eight strikeouts in an 14-0 win over West Hills. The Pirates, after a 6-1 loss to Sequoias (8-20, 6-10) on Tuesday, are 9-19 and 5-11.

▪ Fresno City has won 22 straight to grab a share of the top spot in the California Community College Fastpitch Coaches Association poll, a first for Rhonda Williams since she became coach in 1995.

In their first game at No. 1, the Rams routed Hartnell 19-0 on Sunday before returning to CVC play with a 7-1 victory at West Hills on Tuesday to improve to 30-3 and 14-0.

There have been a couple of close calls, including a 6-5 win over Merced on April 5 and 4-3 over Porterville in the second game of an April 7 doubleheader. In the latter, the Rams rallied with four runs in the bottom of the seventh, an inning capped by Karen Zamora’s walkoff double.

Elsewhere – University of Arizona star and Clovis West High alum McKenzie Jacobson is one of 12 players chosen by the Pacific-12 Conference to be part of a volleyball all-star team that will travel to China in June. Jacobson finished her redshirt sophomore year second on the team with a .271 hitting percentage on a career-high 458 total swings. She appeared in every set this season for Arizona and was second with 0.90 blocks/set.

Coached by UCLA’s Michael Sealy, the team will meet in Los Angeles for a June 18 practice, fly the next day to Shanghai, practice and sight-see there for two days, then play in Nanjing from June 23-25 and in Beijing from June 26 through July 1 before returning to the U.S.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 7:59 PM with the headline "Local colleges: Freshman outfielder Carrillo shines for Fresno Pacific."