High school football, baseball, softball all-star games coming to Merced County this month

Merced County will host a flurry of high school all-star games in the next few weeks with football, flag football, baseball and softball games on tap.

The action gets started on Saturday with the Merced County All-Star Baseball Game at Merced College. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Players selected to all-league teams from their respective leagues were chosen for the game.

The South team will be comprised of players from Dos Palos, El Capitan, Golden Valley, Le Grand, Mariposa, Merced, Sonora and Stone Ridge Christian.

The South team will be made up of players from Atwater, Buhach Colony, Delhi, Gustine, Hilmar, Livingston, Los Banos and Pacheco.

The South snapped a five-game losing streak to the North in the all-time series last year with a 13-5 win, which included 18 hits from the South.

Softball

Longtime coach Joe Leonardo is bringing back his softball all-star game, which was last played in 2019 and was stopped due to the pandemic.

He started the game in honor of his late brother Paul Leonardo. He’s bringing back the game under a new name, “The Leonardo Family Memorial Scholarship All-Star Game” to honor a couple other family members who have died in recent years.

The event is scheduled for Tuesday, June 11 at the Livingston Softball Complex. There will be a home run derby at 3 p.m. The first games are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. with a second round of games scheduled for 5:30 p.m.

The game will feature four all-star teams made up of all-league selections from the Central California Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Trans-Valley League and Southern League.

The all-star event is set up as a four-team tournament with the two winning teams playing in the championship game.

Leonardo said he was asked by many softball coaches to bring the all-star game back.

“Everyone seems excited,” Joe Leonardo said. “I’ve lost my sister and brother since Covid and we wanted to honor them. A lot of coaches really wanted to bring this game back.”

Admission for the event will be $10 and all proceeds from the gate and snack bar will go to the scholarships that will be handed out at the game to players. Leonardo says he hopes to give up six to eight $500 scholarships.

Football

Two longtime coaches have worked together to revive a version of a high school football all-star game that was a fixture in the Central Valley for close to three decades.

Kevin Swartwood and Lou Souza have come together to start the Merced County All-Star Football Game, which is sponsored by the Merced Breakfast Lions Club. The game will be played at Golden Valley’s Veterans Stadium on Saturday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.

There also will be a Merced County Girls Flag Football All-Star Game held prior at 5:30 p.m.

The game was created to help fill the void of the long-running North/South Rotary Bob Green Football Classic, which was one of the many casualties of the pandemic.

The boys football game will be comprised of players from 20 schools. The North will be coached by Atwater High coach Seneca Ybarra and his Falcons staff. The North team will be made up of players from Atwater, Buhach Colony, Hilmar, Livingston, Gustine, Delhi, Los Banos, Pacheco, Patterson and Orestimba.

Golden Valley’s Rick Martinez and his Cougars staff will coach the Souther team, which will be made up of players from Golden Valley, Merced, El Capitan, Dos Palos, Le Grand, Mariposa, Sonora, Summerville, Stone Ridge Christian and Chowchilla.

There will also be seven $1,000 scholarships handed out to athletes from the flag football and boys football game combined.

To apply for scholarships, the players were asked to submit an essay, two letters of recommendation and to have a GPA at or above 3.5.

“Hopefully we get to the point my goal is giving out more like 25 or 30 thousand dollars a year,” Swartwood said.

The flag football game will be divided into blue and gold teams. The blue team is comprised of players from Central Valley, Ceres, Livingston Los Banos, Orestimba, Pacheco and Patterson and will be coached by Livingston’s Toni Tafolla.

The gold team will field players from Atwater, Buhach Colony, Golden Valley, El Capitan, Merced and Mariposa and will be coached by Atwater’s Capri Abbasi.