Wednesday Notebook/Valley Hires B-Ball Coaches

Valley High School’s athletic director Rod Edmiston has hired a new varsity head basketball coach for both the boys’ and the girls’ programs.
The new boys’ coach will be Jerod Hyden, who replaces Mat Bradley, now an assistant basketball coach at Cosumnes River College.
“The kids love him,” Edmiston said of Hyden, who is also a teacher on campus. “He’s a good fit for the school.”
Bradley resigned this summer after four seasons as Valley’s head coach.
The Vikings will open the season Nov. 28 when they host Capital Christian, the defending Sac-Joaquin Section Division V champions.

The new girls’ coach is Steve Farr, a former head junior varsity coach at Elk Grove.
“Steve was an excellent candidate for this job and will also be a good fit here,” Edmiston said.
Farr replaces Raymond Rucker, who coached at Valley the past four seasons and led the Lady Vikings to the Section Division II championship game in 2009. Rucker resigned for personal reasons. …
Growing up in Wilton, David Freitas was always a fan of the Oakland A’s. Now, he’s a member of that baseball club’s farm system and may be a year or so away from playing for the club he idolized as a young boy.
“After I got a chance to sit down and think about it, I realized this was my favorite team growing up,” Freitas said. “This was a team I always watched and dreamt playing on.”
“My family absolutely loves it, in fact, they probably love it more than I do,” he added.
He was traded to Oakland on Aug. 3 by the Washington Nationals in exchange for the A’s starting catcher, Kurt Suzuki.
“It showed me how highly Oakland thinks about me,” Freitas said. “I think that is absolutely awesome to be traded for a big leaguer.”
Freitas, also a catcher, was playing for the Nationals’ Advanced-A affiliate in the Carolina League at the time. When he became a part of the A’s organization, he was sent to Midland, Tex., Oakland’s Double-A affiliate in the Texas League.
“The host families there were amazing,” he said. “It’s a nice place. You’re surrounded by oil, and it’s sort of out in the middle of nowhere, but I liked it.”
One thing he had to get used to quickly was the bus travel.
“The bus rides weren’t too fun, they were all far,” Freitas said. “It’s something you have to learn to handle as a minor leaguer.”
The Texas League has teams several hundred miles away in Tulsa, Okla., Little Rock, Ark and Springfield, Ark.
The 20 games he played for the Rockhounds were good ones for Freitas. He batted .333 with a pair of home runs, six doubles and 11 RBI’s.
Freitas, who played high school ball at Elk Grove and the first two years of college baseball at Cosumnes River College, was home for the first two weeks of September and left this week for instructional league games at the A’s training facility in Arizona.
He said he’s not certain where he’ll play in 2013. It could likely be back in Midland or even in Triple-A with the Sacramento Rivercats. The past two weeks Freitas had some time off to spend with his mother, Cheryl, and brother,Kyle, who like David, may be a power-hitting infielder. Kyle is now a junior at Pleasant Grove, who has struggled with arm injuries the past two years.
“He has been throwing, says his arm feels good, throwing with me every day and I like the way he is looking,” David said. “He’s getting his swing down and is growing into his body. He is getting taller.”
After about four weeks in Arizona, Freitas will spend his off-season again in Wilton.
“I am going to lift with my brother, do some catching drills, and also clean up some horse stalls,” he said. …
A key part of last season’s Northern California basketball championship team at Sheldon, Dakarai Allen, announced last weekend he’ll play his college basketball at San Diego State. Allen, a 6-6 senior, will be joining former Sacramento High School star Chase Tapley and Pleasant Grove High School graduate Xavier Thames in San Diego.