Daily Journal Baseball Player of the Year: Serra’s Jake Downing

Then one day in the batting cage, the left-handed hitting Downing had a breakthrough. It wasn’t anything on the technical side. His swing, by all accounts, was in fine shape even through Serra’s first 15 games. What finally got through to the senior slugger was something freshman teammate Aaron Minton, who happened to be in the same hitting group with him that day, said while watching Downing take his cuts.

“He was behind me waiting to hit and I heard him say: ‘This guy doesn’t miss,’” Downing said. “It kind of put a smile on my face and just flipped that switch for me.”

With that flip of the switch, Downing went on a tear of epic proportions. Through Serra’s final nine regular-season games, the senior hit .500 (14 for 25) with two home runs to lead his team to a co-West Catholic Athletic League regular-season championship, the Padres’ first since 2018. He kept swinging it through the postseason, hitting .438 (7 for 16) with two home runs through four playoff games.

All told, Downing hit .512 (21 for 41) during the hot streak, including four home runs over five games. He went on to capture the team batting title with a .386 batting average, while ranking second on the Padres with four home runs and 27 RBIs — all this while playing Gold Glove-caliber defense at the keystone sack.

Downing’s big finish catapulted him to WCAL Most Valuable Player honors. It has also earned him the distinction of Daily Journal Baseball Player of the Year.

“Jake’s work ethic is outstanding, and I think he set the bar high for himself,” Padres manager Mat Keplinger said. “He had really high expectations for what he wanted to do, not just for himself but for the team, and I think he was really placing a lot of expectations on himself early in the season.”

The turnaround came after Serra’s 4-1 loss to Valley Christian in the first game of a critical two-game series. Call it mind over matter, Downing willed himself out of his funk. In the series finale, he recorded his first multi-RBI game of the season, going 1 for 2 with two RBIs in a 9-0 Padres win, one that would loom large as it was with Valley Christian that Serra ultimately shared the WCAL regular-season championship.

Downing credited regular meditation to get his mind right and, in turn, amp up the production.

“That really was a spark for him,” Keplinger said, “and he really carried us down the stretch. His second half was unbelievable. He was good all year, but that second half was something special to watch.”

The meditation was his mother Tracey’s idea. For deeply personal reasons to Downing and his entire family, perhaps the game-changing advice could have only ever come from her.

Just prior to the 2023-24 school year, Downing’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy, a treatment that was successful in a relatively short time. It was Dec. 15, on Tracey’s birthday, when she received the good news she was cancer free.

The odyssey, however, had a lasting effect on Downing with Serra’s baseball season starting two months later.

“Definitely wanting to have a season for her,” Downing said. “That was definitely weighing on me. So, I just started thinking too much.”

All the while, Downing was in the midst of proving himself amid a new era of Serra baseball. Keplinger took over the program for his first season as a high school coach, and brought on two prominent Serra alumni to fill out the varsity staff — Mickey McDonald and Tyler Villaroman.

At the start of team workouts in the fall, Serra players were subjected to something of a boot camp. They were lifting weights three days a week and running every day. Meanwhile, every position on the diamond was up for grabs, as Keplinger was intent on evaluating the team from scratch.

“After the first couple weeks, it was definitely a shock to my system, to all our systems,” Downing said. “It felt like it was a mini college program. … It was great.”

Prior to Downing landing at second base, he competed for the shortstop job. It was something that would have seemed impossible two years ago when, as a sophomore, he was relegated to designated hitter with the junior-varsity team. Dogged determination in working around the calendar year helped make the impossible possible, though.

Had it not been for shortstop extraordinaire Michael Perrazo — another Division I commit, headed to Sacramento State — Downing might have had a shot at landing the shortstop job. Instead, he became one of the most efficient second baseman in the WCAL, committing just one error on the season to record a .988 fielding percentage.

Even with Downing’s early hitting woes, he and Perrazo emerged as one of the most lethal double-play combinations on the Peninsula. With the Padres totaling 27 twin-killings on the season, Perrazo was involved in 14 of them, and Downing in 11.

“He never took that out to the defensive side of the field,” Keplinger said. “He was as sure-handed and reliable as a second baseman could be this year.”

When Downing finally found his power stroke, it was a jolt to the Serra dugout. Having hit three previous homers in his varsity career, home run No. 1 of 2024 was the most awe inspiring, a monster solo shot in a 6-0 win in Mitty that he put on top of the big building in straightaway right field.

“That was honestly one of the furthest home runs I’ve seen hit at the high school level,” Keplinger said. “… It was a big fly.”

Downing would homer again two days later in a 13-2 win at home over Mitty, a win that clinched the co-WCAL title. He homered again in the WCAL playoff tournament opener, an 8-0 win over Bellarimine. His final home run — his fourth in five games — came in the WCAL tournament championship game, a heartbreaking 4-3 loss that saw him account for all three of Serra’s runs, going 2 for 3 with a double, a homer and three RBIs, while ending the game standing at second base.

The Padres went on to drop their Central Coast Section Division I playoff opener 2-0 to St. Ignatius.

“Obviously not the finish we wanted as a team,” Downing said. “That definitely hurt and took me a while to get over, and I know it was the same for my teammates. … But from a personal standpoint, I’m definitely happy with [the season]. It sucks to know I could have had an even better season. … That’s the only part I look back on and kind of regret. But now I’m definitely proud of what I did and what we did as a team. So, it was definitely an awesome experience.”