Daily Journal Athlete of the Week: Half Moon Bay’s Riley Jackson

A career .379 hitter, who entered the three-game Nor Cal tournament batting .408 on the season, Jackson turned in the best three-game stretch of his three-year varsity career, going 8 for 10 with a double, two home runs, four RBIs and five runs scored.

“It was just fun to see him step up,” Cougars manager Brian Anderson said. “It’s what he loves doing. He’s just such a big-time player, and to do it in the big moments when the team needed him, it’s just so incredible.”

The showing is Jackson’s first three-game multi-hit streak as a Cougar. That alone was enough to earn him the final Daily Journal Athlete of the Week award of the 2025-26 school year. However, he also turned in two big innings of relief, as the right-hander closed out last Tuesday’s 3-0 home win over Sonoma Valley, adding to his 3-for-4 showing at the plate by firing two scoreless innings to earn his fourth save of the year.

From there, HMB still had two days of school remaining. And while the team’s five seniors were looking toward a busy day Thursday — the Nor Cal semifinal showdown with West Valley-Cottonwood was scheduled just hours before the school’s on-campus graduation — Jackson, like most of his teammates, had to take a final earlier that morning.

“The one thing I’ll remember for the rest of my life about this week was sitting in class, I probably looked like an idiot,” Jackson said of his 8:30 a.m. algebra final. “I couldn’t sit still.”

Jackson’s restlessness off the field turned into laser-focused performance later in the day.

With school out for summer, the Cougars rolled to a 10-0 home win over West Valley via mercy rule, with Jackson finding the calm in the batter’s box that eluded him in algebra class, going 2 for 2. He’d ride that calm into Saturday’s season finale, the first Nor Cal championship game in HMB program history, where best was yet to come.

“Yeah, of course you know there’s more riding on it than any other game,” Jackson said. “But I have my same approach. I’m not going to change it just because it’s a bigger game or it’s better pitcher or whatever. ... But in the back of your head, you do know it’s one of the biggest games of your life.”

Plate discipline has been the name of the game all season for Jackson. He was batting a steady .405 at that point, and was already getting walked at a substantial rate as the Cougars scuffled through much of the regular season. Before finishing the year on a 15-game winning streak, HMB went into the last month of the regular season falling below the .500 mark with an 8-9 overall record.

But once the Cougars’ winning streak started April 28 with a 6-2 win over Woodside, Jackson would get walked in each of HMB’s nine straight wins to end the regular season. This included four walks in nine plate appearances in back-to-back wins over rival Terra Nova, two must-have wins to end the regular season that punched the Cougars’ ticket to the playoffs in dramatic fashion via an at-large bid.

Jackson’s walk rate turned out to be one of the defining game-changers of the Nor Cal playoffs, as he was walked just once over the final three postseason games.

“It’s tough because throughout the season, especially in our league, he was just getting pitched to so little,” Anderson said. “So, it was interesting that some of these other teams let the best player beat them.”

Livermore didn’t walk Jackson at all, not even after he singled and scored in the first inning, and doubled to left-center in his second at-bat in the third. This turned out to be a costly approach as, with HMB leading 1-0 in the fifth, the Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division’s leading slugger caught a hanging curveball on a 1-1 pitch and crushed it over the right-field wall for a solo home run, Jackson’s fifth of the year, and his second in the Nor Cal tournament.

“When I’m going up there, I’m never having the approach of home run or bust,” Jackson said. “My approach has always been line drive to the middle of the field.”

But Jackson’s stroke was locked in as good as ever, as the 6-2 junior was putting on regular power shows in batting practice.

“He was so locked in with just practice, too,” Anderson said. “He was putting bombs our left and right.”

Jackson finished with a 3-for-4 showing in HMB’s 2-0 win over Livermore, and his Nor Cal tear saw him finish the year slashing .457/.645/.790. Not that the power show affected his sound left-handed hitting foundation.

“The discipline he has to not be chasing pitches and not to overswing is something you don’t see at this level,” Anderson said.

Now, the athletic and toolsy infielder is gearing up to play at the next level. Prior to the season, Jackson to play NCAA Division I baseball at Santa Clara University. And, on the heels of leading HMB to the Nor Cal Division IV championship, Jackson was back at it Monday, attending the prestigious Area Code Games tryouts at Stanford University on Sunken Diamond.

Even with his senior season at HMB on the horizon, however, Jackson has already etched his name in the Coastside history books, along with a group of teammates who have played together ever since their earliest days in Half Moon Bay Little League.

“This was special,” Jackson said of the Nor Cal crown. “All my best friends since I’ve been 5 years old ... we’re all finally together. For us to do this, it’s super special to all of us.”