Incoming San Diego State signee Jeweliana Perez was recently named Merced High School's Female Athlete of the Year.
Jewels Perez, who will join the Aztecs in the fall and will play in the 20210 season, batted .488 (119-for-244) for her career with seven home runs, 54 RBIs, 84 runs, 30 doubles and 12 triples, while slugging .795 with a .542 on-base percentage (all numbers according to MaxPreps). Additionally, she was a first-team all-CCC selection and first-team all-CCC academic team pick each of her first three years (2017-19) (Merced HS only played in eight games in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemci),, while twice earning Merced Sun all-area honors (2018-19) and being named to the Cal-Hi all-state team in 2018. A scholar-athlete, Perez plays club ball for Universal Fastpitch, where she helped the team to a fifth-place finish at the prestigious Premier Girls Fastpitch tournament in 2019, and a pair of 10th-place showings in 2017 and 2018.
Perez joins a signing class that also includes Makena Brocki and Elianna Reyes. Additionally, SDSU is slated to have Power 5 transfers Jenna Holcomb (Tennessee), Alyssa Pinto (Oregon/Ole Miss), Danielle Romanello (Florida) and Nicole Seiss (Mt. SAC/Purdue) join the program, while seniors Shelby Thompson (four-time all-MW selection) and Marissa Moreno (2019 second-team all-MW pick) are coming back for a fifth season in 2021.
San Diego State finished 17-11 last season and was 37th (out of 298 schools) in the initial RPI, which is a mathematical calculation used to help determine each team's success, using a calculated strength of schedule and won-loss percentage. The Aztecs, who have won a Mountain West-best seven regular-season championships in the 20-year history of the league, were supposed to play host to defending league champion Colorado State the weekend of March 13-15 before the NCAA canceled the rest of spring competition on March 12.