Bee’s Best: Placer’s Oscar Martinez is Prep of the Week winner

Oscar Martinez isn’t the leading scorer on his team, but he’s a key cog to the machine.

The Placer High School senior won this week’s Bee Prep of the Week boys’ voting poll for being a team guy, or a good guy, or both, as all of that carries more weight than his otherwise modest one-goal, two-assist effort that beat Ponderosa 6-3 in a Foothill Valley League contest that helped the Hillmen of Aurburn lock up the conference championship.

Placer’s leading scorer is Alejandro Prieto and Lucas Summers with 19 goals each. Justin Federico has 16 goals and Martinez eight. Translation: Everyone gets involved with the Hillmen soccer program, which is 17-1-2, won the league with a 9-1-2 showing and has gone unbeaten in their last 15 matches with two ties.

In a 5-1 win over Florin in a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division III opener on Thursday night, Summers had three goals, Federico one and Prieto 1.

Placer is seeded second in the field, opposite of top-seeded Patterson. The Hillmen host No. 7 Ceres on Tuesday in Auburn.

Joe Davidson

The Sacramento Bee

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Joe Davidson has covered sports for The Sacramento Bee since 1989: preps, colleges, Kings and features. He was in early 2024 named the National Sports Media Association Sports Writer of the Year for California and he was in the fall of 2024 inducted into the California High School Football Hall of Fame. He is a 14-time award winner from the California Prep Sports Writer Association. In 2021, he was honored with the CIF Distinguished Service award. He is a member of the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Davidson participated in football and track in Oregon.