The Southwest Voice

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Bloodlines are running ver-r-ry thick over at Ridgeview High School! Baseball standouts Arthur Charles Jr. and Isaiah Turner both come from local athletic stock. Arthur Charles Sr. was a superb basketball player at Foothill High and Phil Turner was a punishing football player out of West High. Art Jr. and Isaiah are both in the top five in home runs in Kern County.

Not to be outdone in the lineage department at Ridgeview is softballer Jaime Dumatrait, who leads the county in doubles. Her father coaches there and her brother is a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the major league level.

OK! Proceeding with this particular subject matter, we have star Stockdale High baseball player K.C. Hobson. His father, Butch, had an outstanding career with the Boston Red Sox. K.C.’s Mustangs are the cream of the crop in area baseball teams. He sports a perfect 9-0 pitching record, is tied for the county lead in doubles, is second in RBIs, and possesses a cool .513 batting average. Beefy stats like that make you wonder if he was named after our legendary steakhouse.

Crazy stat: Stockdale softball pitcher MacKenzie Oakes leads all county pitchers with a minuscule 0.42 ERA, yet has seven losses this year!

Ridgeview’s Carly Hummel nips at Oakes’ heels with her own 0.46 ERA. On April 15, Hummel struck out nearly two batters per inning as she recorded 29 Ks in a 15-inning win over Golden Valley. Phenomenal effort! Oh, she knocked in the winning run to boot. Not to mention her no-hit, 19 strikeout gem the day before against West! Ho-hum.

Trevor Hoffman and Eric Gagne used to be two of the premier closers in all of Major League Baseball. That gig seems to not suit their collective abilities anymore. The saber-toothed Hoffman continues to blow saves after famously sending the Rockies further into the playoffs last year by blowing the San Diego Padres’ final game. The Milwaukee Brewers paid handsomely to acquire the suspect Gagne in the off season. He continues to bring the gas can with him to the mound in closing situations. Instead of putting the fire out, he pours more gas on it!

Today’s quote: “Winning isn’t everything but the will to win is.”