Daily Pilot Girls' Basketball Dream Team: Amalia Holguin shepherded Sage Hill back to state finals
Amalia Holguin arrived at Sage Hill two years after her peers and was soon after being considered the most talented of them all.
She was the last of the players coached by Kobe Bryant in the Mamba Sports Academy to reach high school.
Emily Eadie, Kat Righeimer, Annabelle Spotts and Zoie Lamkin were her club teammates, and in two years together at Sage Hill, Holguin completed a group that took the Lightning to new heights.
Sage Hill has never looked back, the program having now qualified for the CIF Southern Section Open Division playoffs in three consecutive years.
For the first time, Holguin had to march on without the girls she called 'sisters,' charged with leading the next version of the Lightning. It took time to materialize, but Sage Hill got to the promised land again.
'Sacramento' was thrown around like a sacred geography by Holguin, who had watched the Lightning win the CIF State Division II title at the Golden 1 Center in 2022.
Sage Hill (23-12) stomped on the competition for much of the CIF State Southern California Regional Division I playoffs, winning its first three games in the bracket by an average of 25 points. When it needed its fearless leader most, Holguin canned a dagger three in the regional final against Los Angeles Windward.
The Lightning claimed a second regional championship and returned to Sacramento, where it very nearly won a second state title in four seasons. The Lightning held a lead in the final minute, but Concord Carondelet pulled out a 51-48 win in the Division I title game.
'Going to Sacramento is a blessing,' Holguin said. 'Not everyone gets to go up there. Eve [Fowler], Addi[son Uphoff] and all the freshmen are really easy to lead because they take advice, and they actually input it into the game. Not a lot of people will probably listen to somebody just two years older than them, especially in high school. … I think they're very coachable and understanding.'
Holguin, the Pacific Coast League MVP and an All-CIF Open Division selection, averaged 14.6 points, four rebounds, four assists and 2.3 steals per game. The junior point guard made 32% of her three-point attempts. She made four shots from beyond the arc in the state final, which she finished with 21 points, five rebounds, four steals and three assists.
'When the big sisters left, I think she identified with the position of being a leader,' Sage Hill coach Kerwin Walters said of Holguin. 'I think the light started clicking for her in the most positive way. Yes, we have whatever hiccups we'll have, but her growth has been outstanding. She has developed into a person that people just gravitate to, want to follow, want to be around.
'She has a light personality that is funny, giggly, and then she has this real serious personality when it comes to trying to win, which is a tremendous attribute from a leader. You know you have to be a little more cordial, a little more welcoming to everyone and try to bring them along, but then when the lights come on and you're on the floor, you've got that laser focus.'
Holguin, the Daily Pilot Girls' Basketball Player of the Year, said she wants to play at the collegiate level. If she can extend her career, she hopes to play overseas or in the WNBA.
'Since I started playing, I've always loved basketball,' Holguin said. 'I want to play for as long as I can. I guess Kobe has influenced the mentality of me working harder than others and having a goal to do it. I love this sport, so why not play it for as long as I can?'
Exposure for the women's game is on the rise, and Holguin said she can contact a couple of WNBA stars for advice in Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx and A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces.
'If I could pick their brains, they're like top people in the W,' Holguin said. 'I don't think you get much better advice.'
The mental nugget that she takes with her out onto the court in pressure situations?
'Trust the work you've put in,' Holguin said. 'When you go into big games, I've trained for this for countless hours, so I don't have to be scared of anything because I'm meant to be there.'
Sage Hill continues to shoot for the sky as a program.
'Our goal has been to get a ring, to be in the state championship game and to win the state championship game,' Walters said. '... There's no superstition about us trying to go get a ring and trying to be the best team that we can be, but really, the best team in the state of California. It's a big thing that this group is driving towards.'
Rus Soobzokov
Laguna Beach
Laguna Beach moved out of the Sunset Conference this season, and the Breakers capitalized by going undefeated in winning the Pacific Hills League championship, the program's first league title since 2016 and third overall. After the Breakers closed the previous season on a nine-game losing streak, Soobzokov guided Laguna Beach (20-10) to a 13-game improvement in the win column and the second round of the Division 4AA playoffs. Senior guard Kate Cheng was named the Pacific Hills League MVP, and freshman center Fiona McCormick nearly averaged a double-double with 16 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.
Emily Hoang
F / C | Huntington Beach | So.
Hoang impacted the game at all three levels on the offensive end of the floor. The Sunset League first-team selection paced the Oilers in scoring at 13 points per game, adding six rebounds, 1.6 steals and 1.5 assists per contest. Huntington Beach (17-14) drew an at-large berth into the Division 3AA playoffs. Hoang scored 24 points to go with nine rebounds in the Oilers' postseason ouster against second-seeded El Segundo.
Kayly Honig
C | Corona del Mar | Sr.
Corona del Mar coach Brason Alexander described Honig as a 'do-everything point-center' who anchored a defense that limited opponents to 40.4 points per game. Honig averaged 10 points, 7.1 rebounds and a team-best 2.7 assists. Corona del Mar (18-11) shared the Sunset League championship with Fountain Valley and Los Alamitos. Honig was joined by teammates Sienna Knodegah, a senior guard, and Sawyer Blumenkranz, a sophomore guard, on the Sunset League first team.
Kamdyn Klamberg
G / F | Sage Hill | So.
Klamberg's role grew exponentially from a rotational player as a freshman to a go-to scorer in her second year with the Lightning. The sophomore was equally dangerous as an outside shooter or underneath the basket. She averaged 13.1 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and her physicality was felt throughout the playoffs. Klamberg had a team-high 21 points and nine rebounds in the regional semifinals against Los Angeles Brentwood.
Victoria Om
G | Fountain Valley | Sr.
As often as Om filled the stat sheet, it's not hard to see why she earned a share of the Sunset League MVP award. The senior point guard split the honor with Tamlyn Yoshida of Los Alamitos, which was among the three teams tied atop the league standings. The backcourt duo of Om and junior Sophie Hsieh led Fountain Valley (19-10) to a share of its first league championship since 2022, when the Barons won the Surf League title outright. Om averaged 15 points, 6.5 assists, five steals and four rebounds per game.
Vivian Villagrana
G | Pacifica Christian | Jr.
Villagrana tickled the twine with regularity for the Tritons, who needed all the scoring they could get against a tough schedule. Pacifica Christian (13-15) played five games against Division 1 playoff teams, as well as two games against Open Division qualifier Fairmont Prep in the San Joaquin League. Villagrana scored 19.2 points per game to go with averages of 4.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals. The All-CIF Division 3AA honoree was one of three first-team all-league selections for the Tritons, joined by senior guard Caylie Villagrana and junior forward Angie Martinez.
Position, Name, School, Year
G / F Angelina Bado, Ocean View, Sr.
G Rylee Bradley, Marina, Jr.
G Kate Cheng, Laguna Beach, Sr.
C Eve Fowler, Sage Hill, Fr.
G Sienna Knodegah, Sr.
F Leilani Quero, Costa Mesa, Jr.
C Fiona McCormick, Laguna Beach, Fr.
G Maria Tejeda, Marina, Sr.
G / F Addison Uphoff, Sage Hill, Fr.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
NCAA will pay its current and former athletes in an agreement that will transform college sports
The business of college sports was upended after a federal judge approved a settlement between the NCAA and former college athletes on June 6, 2025. After a lengthy litigation process, the NCAA has agreed to provide US$2.8 billion in back pay to former and current college athletes, while allowing schools to directly pay athletes for the first time. Joshua Lens, whose scholarship centers on the intersection of sports, business and the law, tells the story of this settlement and explains its significance within the rapidly changing world of college sports. What will change for players and schools with this settlement? The terms of the settlement included the following changes: The NCAA and conferences will distribute approximately $2.8 billion in media rights revenue back pay to thousands of athletes who competed since 2016. Universities will have the ability to enter name, image and likeness, or NIL, agreements with student-athletes. So schools can now, for example, pay them to appear in ads for the school or for public appearances. Each university that opts in to the settlement can disburse up to $20.5 million to student-athletes in the 2025-26 academic year, a number that will likely rise in future academic years. Athletes' NIL agreements with certain individuals and entities will be subject to an evaluation that will determine whether the NIL compensation exceeds an acceptable range based on a perceived fair market value, which could result in the athlete having to restructure or forego the deal. The NCAA's maximum sport program scholarship limits will be replaced with maximum team roster size limits for universities that choose to be part of the settlement. Why did the NCAA agree to settle with, rather than fight, the plaintiffs? In 2020, roughly 14,000 current and former college athletes filed a class action lawsuit, House v. NCAA, seeking damages for past restrictions on their ability to earn money. For decades, college athletics' primary governing body, the NCAA, permitted universities whose athletics programs compete in Division I to provide their athletes with scholarships that would help cover their educational expenses, such as tuition, room and board, fees and books. By focusing only on educational expenses, the NCAA was able to reinforce the notion that collegiate athletes are amateurs who may not receive pay for participating in athletics, despite making money for their schools. A year later, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a separate case, Alston v. NCAA, that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by limiting the amount of education-related benefits, such as laptops, books and musical instruments, that universities could provide to their athletes. The ruling challenged the NCAA's amateurism model while opening the door for future lawsuits tied to athlete compensation. It also burnished the plaintiffs' case in House v. NCAA, compelling college athletics' governing body to take part in settlement talks. What were some of the key changes that took place in college sports after the Supreme Court's decision in Alston v. NCAA? Following Alston, the NCAA permitted universities to dole out several thousand dollars in what's called 'education benefits pay' to student-athletes. This could include cash bonuses for maintaining a certain GPA or simply satisfying NCAA academic eligibility requirements. But contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court's Alston decision didn't let college athletes be paid via NIL deals. The NCAA continued to maintain that this would violate its principles of amateurism. However, many states, beginning with California, introduced or passed laws that required universities within their borders to allow their athletes to accept NIL compensation. With over a dozen states looking to pass similar laws, the NCAA folded on June 30, 2021, changing its policy so athletes could accept NIL compensation for the first time. Will colleges and universities be able to weather all of these financial commitments? The settlement will result in a windfall for certain current and former collegiate athletes, with some expected to receive several hundred thousands of dollars. Universities and their athletics departments, on the other hand, will have to reallocate resources or cut spending. Some will cut back on travel expenses for some sports, others have paused facility renovations, while other athletic departments may resort to cutting sports whose revenue does not exceed their expenses. As Texas A&M University athletic director Trev Alberts has explained, however, that college sports does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending problem. Even in the well-resourced Southeastern Conference, for example, many universities' athletics expenses exceed its revenue. Do you see any future conflicts on the horizon? Many observers hope the settlement brings stability to the industry. But there's always a chance that the settlement will be appealed. More potential challenges could involve Title IX, the federal gender equity statute that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools. What if, for example, a university subject to the statute distributes the vast majority of revenue to male athletes? Such a scenario could violate Title IX. On the other hand, a university that more equitably distributes revenue among male and female athletes could face legal backlash from football athletes who argue that they should be entitled to more revenue, since their games earn the big bucks. And as I pointed out in a recent law review article, an athlete or university may challenge the new enforcement process that will attempt to limit athletes' NIL compensation within an acceptable range that is based on a fair market valuation. The NCAA and the conferences named in the lawsuit have hired the accountancy firm Deloitte to determine whether athletes' compensation from NIL deals fall within an acceptable range based on a fair market valuation, looking to other collegiate and professional athletes to set a benchmark range. If athletes and universities have struck deals that are too generous, both could be penalized, according to the terms of the settlement. Finally, the settlement does not address – let alone solve – issues facing international student-athletes who want to earn money via NIL. Most international student-athletes' visas, and the laws regulating them, heavily limit their ability to accept compensation for work, including NIL pay. Some lawmakers have tried to address this issue in the past, but it hasn't been a priority for the NCAA, as it has lobbied Congress for a federal NIL law. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Joshua Lens, University of Iowa Read more: Caitlin Clark's historic scoring record shines a spotlight on the history of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women The man responsible for making March Madness the moneymaking bonanza it is today Nick Saban's 'epic era' of coaching is over, but the exploitation of players in big-time college football is not Joshua Lens owns The Compliance Group, which provides NCAA compliance consulting services for universities and conferences.
CNN
6 hours ago
- CNN
Sports betting is legal and growing more popular. Harassment of athletes by angry gamblers is rising too
Gabby Thomas being harassed at last weekend's Grand Slam Track meet was shocking – except, actually, it wasn't, given how often it seems to be happening. Thomas, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, said she was verbally abused at the meet, reporting on X that a 'grown man followed me around the track as I took pictures and signed autographs for fans (mostly children) shouting personal insults.' Thomas' statement was in reply to another post on X – which has since been deleted – showing a video of a person heckling Thomas while she was on the starting line, shouting, 'You're a choke artist; you're going down, Gabby.' The social media user bragged about how his actions had benefitted his bet, writing: 'I made Gabby lose by heckling her. And it made my parlay win,' alongside a screenshot of two multi-leg bets on the FanDuel sportsbook platform. FanDuel said it had banned the person responsible for the abuse from its platform, explaining it 'condemns in the strongest terms abusive behavior directed towards athletes.' 'Threatening or harassing athletes is unacceptable and has no place in sports. This customer is no longer able to wager with FanDuel,' the statement shared with CNN Sports added. It was in 2018 that the US Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law, which had prohibited most states from allowing sports betting. Gambling on sports is now legal in 39 states, which experts warn has opened the floodgates for a torrent of abuse towards professional and collegiate leagues from bettors who blame them for their financial losses. In March, the NCAA launched a campaign aimed at tackling what it described as 'the alarming prevalence of abuse and harassment student-athletes face from angry fans who lost a bet.' According to an analysis of abusive messages sent via social media to college athletes, coaches and officials during the Division I championships, 12% – some 740 messages – were related to sports betting, according to the NCAA. Instances of such messages included one user who threatened a college athlete with the message, 'Yo no big deal but if you don't get 22 points and 12 boards everyone you know and love will Be dead,' according to the analysis, which was produced with Signify Group. Meanwhile, over 540 abusive betting-related messages – including death threats – were leveled at men's and women's basketball student-athletes and game officials during March Madness, a preliminary set of data trends found. Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of enterprise risk management at the NCAA told CNN: 'I think athletes are under attack right now, frankly, on social media and in person, and a lot of the people slinging the biggest bullets are sports bettors.' Hangebrauck, who has worked at the NCAA for 15 years, said that there has been a surge of athletes receiving abuse since the federal ban on sports betting was struck down, adding that in certain states – including Ohio and North Carolina – a barrage of abuse towards student athletes was 'almost immediate.' The NCAA is now seeking a ban on proposition bets, colloquially known as prop bets, on college athletes, calling the phenomenon 'a mental health nightmare.' Prop bets are made on outcomes not associated with the final score and are often based on individual performances. 'You could even perform well, and you're receiving all this negative feedback from betters because you didn't hit specific betting lines,' Hangebrauck added, noting that about half of the states that do allow gambling in the US have banned prop bets on student athletes. Jason Lopez, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin told CNN Sports: 'The way that the newly legalized sports betting universe works is that it's very common to make prop bets where, even though it's a team sport, you can actually bet on the performance of individual players.' 'It turns what could be a team game into an individual performance, too. And so it's easy to then focus whatever anger you have on the bet at individual players,' Lopez, whose research focuses on sports media and betting, explained. The issue of bettors harassing athletes is widespread across sporting disciplines, with tennis and NBA players reporting instances of abuse. For a few professional athletes, it's an opportunity to punch back. In reply to a social media user who gave him grief about his seeming nonchalance over a bad performance in a game, NBA superstar Kevin Durant posted on X in November 2024, 'Stop blaming me for losing money because you have a gambling problem.' Great dub suns, and for my parlayers, better luck next time lol For others, however, social media comments made cross any acceptable line. In the past few weeks, MLB players Lance McCullers Jr. and Liam Hendriks have both reported that their families have been on the receiving end of death threats. Houston Astros pitcher McCullers Jr. revealed he received threats from a man who took to social media and threatened to find his kids and 'murder them.' The Houston Police Department later traced these threats to an intoxicated sports bettor from overseas who had lost money betting on the Astros' May 10 game against the Cincinnati Reds, per Reuters. Boston Red Sox pitcher Hendriks reported similar abuse, telling that 'with the rise of sports gambling, it's gotten a lot worse.' 'Threats against my life and my wife's life are horrible and cruel,' Hendriks wrote in a post on his Instagram Stories, according to 'You need help. Comments telling me to commit suicide and how you wish I died from cancer is disgusting and vile. Maybe you should take a step back and re-evaluate your life's purpose before hiding behind a screen attacking players and their families. He added: 'Whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be people telling you in their comments, 'Hey, you blew my parlay. Go f*ck yourself,' kind of stuff. And then it's, 'Go hang yourself. You should kill yourself. I wish you died from cancer.' 'That one kind of hit a little too close to home for me with everything I've gone through,' Hendriks, who in 2023 announced he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, added. Joe Maloney, senior vice president of strategic communications for the American Gaming Association, told CNN Sports in a statement: 'The outcome of a bet is never an invitation to harass or threaten athletes, coaches, or officials. Abuse of any kind has no place in sports.' 'The legal, regulated industry offers the transparency and accountability needed to identify bad actors and collaborate with leagues, regulators, and law enforcement to deter misconduct and enforce consequences. Unlike illegal and unregulated market apps or bookies, legal operators work every day to uphold the integrity of competition and ensure a responsible wagering environment,' Maloney added. Lopez pointed out that, while sports betting has only recently been legalized and commercialized across the United States, most sports have been associated with wagering since their beginnings, albeit in a more underground capacity up until recently. 'There's just a basic fact about (sports) companies and organizations that run these games for entertainment which is that gambling helps increase interest – it drives interest. So they like all the betting that's happening around them; it builds interest in their sport. 'Their athletes being abused, especially if they're collegiate athletes, could harm their entertainment product. So they have to take very public stances about this in order to try to mitigate the idea that you know this entertainment product is putting people at risk,' he added. Hangebrauck added to CNN: 'I think there's a responsible way to engage in sports betting, and a lot of fans and people do so. Ninety-six percent of people overall generally lose in sports betting in the long run, so just be responsible about how you react to that – own it yourself.'
a day ago
Athletes express concern over NCAA settlement's impact on non-revenue sports
Sydney Moore and Sabrina Ootsburg were surrounded by hundreds of college athletes at AthleteCon when news broke that the $2.8 billion NCAA settlement had been approved by a federal judge. In a room full of college athletes, they felt like the only two people who understood the gravity of the situation. 'I'm about to get paid,' Moore said a Division I football player told her. 'Yes, you are about to get paid, and a lot of your women athlete friends are about to get cut,' she responded. Moore acknowledged that her response might be a stretch, but the sprawling House settlement clears the way for college athletes to get a share of revenue directly from their schools and provides a lucky few a shot at long-term financial stability, it raises genuine concerns for others. Schools that opt int will be able to share up to $20.5 million with their athletes over the next year starting July 1. The majority is expected to be spent on high-revenue generating sports, with most projections estimating 75% of funds will go toward football. So what happens to the non-revenue-generating sports which, outside of football and basketball, is pretty much all of them? It's a query that's top of mind for Ootsburg as she enters her senior year at Belmont, where she competes on track and field team. 'My initial thought was, is this good or bad? What does this mean for me? How does this affect me? But more importantly, in the bigger picture, how does it affect athletes as a whole?' Ootsburg said. 'You look at the numbers where it says most of the revenue, up to 75% to 85%, will go toward football players. You understand it's coming from the TV deals, but then it's like, how does that affect you on the back end?' Ootsburg asked. 'Let's say 800k goes toward other athletes. Will they be able to afford other things like care, facilities, resources or even just snacks?' Moore has similar concerns. She says most female athletes aren't worried about how much – if any – money they'll receive. They fear how changes could impact the student-athlete experience. 'A lot of us would much rather know that our resources and our experience as a student-athlete is going to stay the same, or possibly get better, rather than be given 3,000 dollars, but now I have to cover my meals, I have to pay for my insurance, I have to buy ankle braces because we don't have any, and the athletic training room isn't stocked,' Moore said over the weekend as news of Friday night's settlement approval spread. One of the biggest problems, Ootsburg and Moore said, is that athletes aren't familiar with the changes. At AthleteCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, they said, perhaps the biggest change in college sports history was a push notification generally shrugged off by those directly impacted. 'Athletes do not know what's happening,' Ootsburg said. 'Talking to my teammates, it's so new, and they see the headlines and they're like, 'Ok, cool, but is someone going to explain this?' because they can read it, but then there's so many underlying factors that go into this. This is a complex problem that you have to understand the nuances behind, and not every athlete truly does.' Some coaches, too, are still trying to understand what's coming. Mike White, coach of the national champion Texas softball team, called it 'the great unknown right now.' 'My athletic director, Chris Del Conte, said it's like sailing out on a flat world and coming off the edge; we just don't know what's going to be out there yet, especially the way the landscape is changing,' he said at the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City. 'Who knows what it's going to be?' Jake Rimmel got a crash course on the settlement in the fall of 2024, when he said he was cut from the Virginia Tech cross-country team alongside several other walk-ons. The topic held up the House case for weeks as the judge basically forced schools to give athletes cut in anticipation of approval a chance to play — they have to earn the spot, no guarantees — without counting against roster limits. Rimmel packed up and moved back to his parents' house in Purcellville, Virginia. For the past six months, he's held on to a glimmer of hope that maybe he could return. 'The past six months have been very tough," he said. "I've felt so alone through this, even though I wasn't. I just felt like the whole world was out there – I would see teammates of mine and other people I knew just doing all of these things and still being part of a team. I felt like I was sidelined and on pause, while they're continuing to do all these things.' News that the settlement had been approved sent Rimmel looking for details. 'I didn't see much about roster limits," he said. 'Everyone wants to talk about NIL and the revenue-sharing and I mean, that's definitely a big piece of it, but I just didn't see anything about the roster limits, and that's obviously my biggest concern.' The answer only presents more questions for Rimmel. 'We were hoping for more of a forced decision with the grandfathering, which now it's only voluntary, so I'm a little skeptical of things because I have zero clue how schools are going to react to that," Rimmel told The Associated Press. Rimmel is still deciding what's best for him, but echoed Moore and Ootsburg in saying that answers are not obvious: 'I'm just hoping the schools can make the right decisions with things and have the best interest of the people who were cut.'
