Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year: Design Tech’s Jeneva Fletcher

Yes, Fletcher made a name for herself as one of the greatest athletes in the history of Design Tech — yet, she kind of hated it there.

“My mom made me go,” Fletcher said, adding she had “zero interest” in attending the small charter school on the Oracle campus in Redwood City that opened in 2014. “I had no choice. ... I wanted to go to Hillsdale.”

Born in Chicago but hailing from San Mateo since she was 3, Fletcher can be elusive, especially with her coaches, a paradox born from her reputation for missing practices. This isn’t because she’s a slacker. Far from it. If Fletcher isn’t on the practice field, it means she’s playing another sport, somewhere else, as part of her eclectic sports portfolio.

To talk to Fletcher, she’s immediately and willfully forthright. This makes waves with coaches from time to time. She speaks her mind, and if she isn’t happy with the direction of a team, or her role on it, she lets it be known. And if a situation ultimately doesn’t jive with her goals and expectations, she isn’t afraid to walk away.

Fletcher is also a clear choice as the Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year. Was she a big fish in a small pond? Sure. But had it been up to her when entering high school, she would have jumped into a much larger pond.

“I think I definitely would have had to try harder at a lot of things (at Hillsdale), but I think the end result would have been similar,” Fletcher said.

At Design Tech — a school of 558 students, with approximately half of them participating as student-athletes — Fletcher hit the ground running. As a freshman in 2021-22, she started for the varsity volleyball team as a middle blocker; for girls’ soccer as a utility standout, who got plenty of playing time at her favorite position of goalkeeper; and for softball as a quick and rangy center fielder.

All the roles she played as a freshman were in her comfort zone, and she made an impact in all three sports. She even earned All-PSAL recognition for soccer. Recognition or not, Fletcher was fairly content to that point.

“She’s at her best, to be honest, when she is just completely enjoying herself, and locked in on the game that’s being played,” Ben Lewis, Design Tech’s assistant athletic director and assistant softball coach, said.

Ah, the way it used to be

Fletcher’s sophomore year saw some dramatic changes.

The volleyball team had a new coach, and would enlist another new one by 2023-24. This didn’t create many waves for Fletcher, who played volleyball more as a hobby sport. She still led the team in blocking all four years, and as a senior would rank second in scoring next to the Dragons’ terminator, All-PSAL outside hitter Mina Lee Hwong Bartlett.

Come the winter season, however, a seismic shift occurred on the soccer pitch when she saw her time at goalkeeper diminish greatly. Even with pivoting between striker and goalie, Fletcher ranked second on the Dragons with 17 goals as a freshman, behind senior Annie Phillips. When Phillips graduated, however, Fletcher was looked to as a regular on the front row.

“They needed me up front, so I was a left wing attacker the rest of my years,” Fletcher said.

Then came the ripple effect of softball — the sport she plans to play at the next level at Long Beach City College, with a caveat; she will attend Long Beach State academically, but will enroll concurrently in one class at LBCC to play there.

Softball caused Fletcher to diversify her playing portfolio almost to the point of overextending herself. She and her dad had been playing catch since she could remember, so the sport was always one of her greatest joys. With her commitments on the travel softball circuit, however, first with San Mateo-based Eagles Fastpitch Softball, then switching across county lines to play for the San Jose Lady Sharks in Walnut Creek, she made a habit of missing high school practices to commute back and forth from San Jose.

“Driving from club practice like two, three hours away, so I couldn’t really go to practice,” Jeneva Fletcher said, “but I went to every single game.”

The approach didn’t fly with the soccer team, however, and come the final soccer game of her Design Tech career, Fletcher didn’t play at all. That’s right, the future San Mateo Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year got benched.

“Of the many sports she participated in, soccer wasn’t her priority, and that’s perfectly fine,” Philip Joung, Design Tech head girls’ soccer coach, said via text. “People consider themselves lucky to be good at one sport — she was good at many, exceptional in some. I really appreciated having her on the team, and she had an imposing presence whenever she was on the pitch.”

Redemption in the spring

Fletcher went on to ride one of the great redemption arcs you’ll ever see.

It helped her stay in the favor with the softball team, seeing as her father, Robert Fletcher, serves as Design Tech head softball coach. And she’d go on to the greatest season in the history of the Dragons, batting .793 on the season, ranking No. 6 in the nation among teams that report statistics to MaxPreps.com.

One might think hitting .793 takes a great degree of single-mindedness, but this certainly isn’t true in Jevena Fletcher’s case. Not only did she light it up at the plate, she stepped up when the Dragons were without a pitcher to work 47 innings in the circle. Meanwhile, she was moonlighting as a multisport athlete by rostering on the Design Tech track and field team.

“I’m the definition of someone who wants to win,” Jeneva Fletcher said. “I love winning, I hate losing. I don’t even want to think about that word. I hate it.”

It was because Design Tech lost its softball program in 2023-24 that she found track and field in the first place. When Fletcher was a junior, the school didn’t have enough players to field a softball team. First, she and softball teammate Ella Lewis joined the varsity baseball team. Lewis played the entire season, and even recorded one hit April 19, 2024, against North Valley Baptist-Santa Clara.

Fletcher, however, suited up for just three games. She didn’t get onto the field, and riding the pine didn’t agree with her. So, she let it be known she wasn’t happy with the situation. Then she walked, quitting the team just a few weeks into the season.

“I didn’t like playing with a bunch of boys that thought they were better than me,” Jeneva Fletcher said, “and they weren’t.”

That led Fletcher to the track and field team as a junior. And, come her senior season, she proved there was no one better than her in the PSAL in two field events, going on to capture league championships at the May 9 PSAL finals, claiming the long jump title with a distance of 16-feet, 5-inches, and the triple jump crown with a 33-10 — all without hardly ever attending a track and field practice because she was busy elsewhere.

Fletcher was busy because Design Tech brought back softball in 2025 — thanks to help from Ella Lewis, who brought aboard a group of friends to revitalize the program.

“[Ella Lewis] is super outgoing and has a bunch of younger friends,” Jeneva Fletcher said. “So, she got a bunch of her younger friends to join. So, Ella and Ella’s friends was the team.”

The problem was, Lewis was the only player on the roster with any varsity catching experience. She also pitches, but the Dragons needed her behind the plate. That’s when the 5-10, wiry strong Fletcher with a love of center field got the call. She held her own in the circle, going 7-3 with a 4.62 ERA, and even threw four abbreviated no-hitters in mercy-rule wins, including a four-inning perfect game May 5 against Latino College Prep-San Jose. More importantly, she led the Dragons to a PSAL championship and to a Central Coast Section playoff appearance.

“As a hitter she was dominant but she had a couple games at pitcher that we don’t win without her,” Ben Lewis said.

The Dragons went one-and-done in the CCS Division V playoffs, falling 16-1 to South City. Fletcher, though, finished her Design Tech sports career surrounded by the team atmosphere that had long proven allusive for, quite possibly, the best all-around athlete in the school’s brief history.

“Even though we lost by a lot ... it was fun seeing all the girls open up,” Fletcher said. “We had actually made a team this year ... so we were all crying. ... It was a bonding experience, even though I know I wouldn’t see any of them again.”