Aptos High recently celebrated six senior student-athletes who officially committed to compete at the collegiate level after signing their National Letter of Intent on Nov. 28.
Athletic director Travis Fox said that last month’s event was not just for the students to celebrate, but it was also a huge round of applause to the family members.
Especially those who drove to early morning practices and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to go along with the orange slices since the students were children.
“It’s pretty cool to see the families get to celebrate, as well,” Fox said.
Mileena Carbajal will pack her bags and head to Texas to play softball for Arlington Baptist University in 2025.
Jorden Espinoza and Dillion Hocom both will continue their baseball careers at Texas Tech University and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, respectively.
Mariners cross country runner Rachel Hoops will stay put in the Central Coast after signing with California State University Monterey Bay, Paloma Primavera will compete for the Fresno State equestrian team and Alexia Fajardo is taking her swimming talents to Cal State University-East Bay.
The students sat on stage inside the performing arts center on campus to sign their NLIs in front of family members and friends. Once the letters received a John Hancock, the festivities continued with pizza, cake and refreshments.
Carbajal said signing on that dotted line felt better than she expected. She’s the first person in her family to attend a four year university coming straight out of high school.
“I’m kind of breaking that trend of going to Cabrillo and taking that two years staying here,” she said. “I felt very loved by all my family, and supported.”
Carbajal said it’ll be hard being away from home, yet she had a warm welcoming trip to Texas. She wants to take the time to attend school outside of California, which she’s already traveled up and down during her time playing travel softball.
“It’s a fresh new place and a fresh new start,” Carbajal said.
In what is becoming a yearly tradition for the school, Fox said it was a beautiful night for this particular group to be able to continue their athletic and academic career at the next level.
This year’s seniors were freshmen in 2020 and had a non-traditional start to their high school athletic career due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fox mentioned there’s also been a non-traditional route for recruitment over the past four years.
College students were given an additional year of eligibility and the transfer port portal increased. All of those circumstances made recruiting high school athletes even more difficult.
Fox said the landscape of college recruitment has shifted over that time, forcing students to adjust to that changing landscape.
“The fact that they’ve been able to grind through that adversity, continue to follow their dreams and be able to continue at the next level, I think, says a lot about their work ethic and who they are as individuals,” Fox said.
Carbajal wasn’t even sure if she’d make the Aptos softball varsity team as a freshman, let alone be a starter all four years.
Instead, she expected to be at the bottom of the food chain, the underdog. But the harder Carbajal worked the more playing time she saw on the field.
In 2023, she was hitting a .375 average (24-of-64) with 21 RBIs, 12 runs scored, five doubles, two triples and three home runs. In the circle, she recorded 85 strikeouts and had a 4.30 earned run average.
“I feel like it could have been better,” Carbajal said. “There’s always room for improvement.”
Carbajal will primarily be a pitcher at Arlington Baptist, but the program will utilize her skills in both the infield and outfield. She’s also regarded as one of the section’s most lethal power hitters and has got quite the swing.
Carbajal said she’ll use her final season at Aptos to continue working on her accuracy in both pitching and hitting.
Her piece of advice for young players looking to get recruited is to play the game the way they were taught, Attempt to overlook the intimidation factor, especially as a freshman playing at the varsity level.
“You just gotta play the game how you know you can play and just give your 100% in practice and in games,” Carbajal said. “Just be a good teammate and just do what you know you can do because it will take you really far if you can play under pressure, and get used to that pressure.”
Aptos coaches and administration considers athletics the last class of the day, an extension of the school day.
Fox said they’ll do anything possible to help the coaches, yet it all starts with getting the right people in those coaching spots. The same people they can trust to foster a safe environment for the student-athletes.
“We don’t define success based on wins and losses,” Fox said. “You can have a very successful season and not win many games, and I think we try and instill that into the kid that this is about growing as a citizen, continuing to get better, hard work, and hard work will pay off in the end.”
Carbajal said the athletics department at Aptos has been a powerhouse for quite some time because most of the young athletes are attracted to the college scholarship offers.
“As we go along in the years, people see students getting D-I or D-II offers and they want to attend Aptos,” she said. “As we keep the reputation going, it’s gonna get better and better.”
