Three tennis titles by Irvine Valley's Javier Callejo and four in the pool for College of San Mateo's Erica Vong resulted in more honors for the outstanding student-athletes when they were named the CCCAA/CCCSIA Athletes of the Month, it was announced on Friday,Callejo, a sophomore, accomplished the Triple Crown of state tennis on April 30 in a CCCAA doubles championship sweep with sophomore teammate Lucas Lesoeur at Libbey Park in Ojai. A few hours earlier, Callejo won the state singles title. On April 26, Callejo helped IVC open the 117th Ojai Tournament with a 5-1 win in the State Dual Team final over American River, which was the top seed from Northern California.
Callejo, the No. 9 seed, won his second straight state singles title by sweeping No. 6 Vincent Reynaud of Cypress, 6-3, 6-4, in an All-Orange Empire Conference final. He's the first repeat state singles champion since Dan Omaboe of Marymount in 1994-95 and only the third back-to-back winner in tournament history. He's the first Triple Crown winner since Adriano Biasella of Desert in 2002 and the 10th Triple Crown winner since the state championships began in 1960.
Callejo and Lesoeur were seeded No. 2 in doubles. They defeated Cypress' No. 10 Thomas Kyle and Ingmar Remmerswaal, 6-2, 6-2, in the early morning semifinals, then swept past the top-seed Cerritos duo of Nikita Katsnelson and Sasha Krasnov, 6-2, 6-4, in the afternoon final.
Vong kept rewriting the Coast Conference women's swim record book with her performances this season. At the April Coast Conference Championships, the standout scored gold medals in the 200-yard individual medley, 100 backstroke, and 200 backstroke as well as helping CSM win the 200 freestyle and 400 medley relays. She aided the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay squads to silver medals.
Vong broke the 200 backstroke record and two conference relay standards at the Coast finals. She was voted Coast Swimmer of the Year. Vong is a 4.0 student-athlete, an economics major and dean's list member, is part of the CSM Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society, and made the CCCAA Academic All-State Team. She capped her career in May at the CCCAA Championships where she set two state meet records, won the 100, 200 backstroke and 200 IM titles and helped her college win its first-ever relay gold in the 200 medley relay. She was named State Swimmer of the Year.
Male Honorable Mentions
Cole Kleszcz | College of the Canyons | Baseball | Freshman
Many players would love to have an entire season in what the power-hitting Kleszcz accomplished in April. Kleszcz launched 12 home runs, including seven in the first five games of the month, drove in 25 RBI, and scored a staggering 27 runs with 31 hits in 14 games. The centerfielder slugged 1.350 and batted .525 as he helped COC finish the month with an 11-3 record.
Noah Luna | Chaffey | Diving | Freshman
The Panthers diver set a school record with 278.75 points to win the 3-meter board event at the Pasadena Invitational. He followed that as the winner of the South Coast Conference 1 and 3-meter diving titles. He added a state title in the 1-meter dive.
Female Honorable Mentions
Paige Johnson/ Antelope Valley / Softball/ Sophomore
Johnson, a third baseman, put together a monster batting month of April has she helped the Marauders to a perfect 10-0 campaign and their first-ever Western State Conference title. Johnson batted .639, slugged 11 home runs, and drove in 34 RBI. She had an astounding 1.722 slugging percentage in the month.
Sarah Miller & Paige Panter/ Long Beach City College/ Beach Volleyball/ Freshmen
The duo of Miller & Panter were recently crowned CCCAA Individual State Champions after winning the PCAC Individual Championships to end the month. The pair won six straight sweeps in April dual matches. This was the inaugural season of the sport for LBCC.
Lauren Davis/ Cuesta/ Swimming/ Freshmen
Davis was the 2017 Western State Conference Swimmer of the Year after winning three individual events and setting two conference records at the April WSC Swim Championships. All three of her victories are new Cuesta records and she helped set two more school standards in the relays. She broke a 26-year-old school record in the 100-yard breaststroke.