Six Heritage High athletes sign national letters of intent

Photo by Kristi Jo Photography

Six Heritage High School student-athletes signed letters of intent on Wednesday to accept college athletic scholarships. Here are brief bios of each one, provided by the Heritage High athletic department:

Cassidy Shaw, softball

Cassidy has been playing softball for 13 years, starting when she was 4. She has been a varsity starter since her freshman year. As a pitcher, she ended her junior season with a 10-3 record, 1.35 ERA and 112 strikeouts. She also batted .455 with 30 RBIs for the season and was awarded All-League Ivy League First Team, Inland Sports All-Area Team, and Western National Most Outstanding Pitcher. Cassidy is a scholar-athlete maintaining a 4.0+ GPA and has been in National Honor Society all four years of high school. She has also been in the California Scholarship Federation for all four years of high school as well. Cassidy plans to major in Pre-med and is continuing her academic and softball career at Princeton University.

Tyler Suttles, softball

Tyler started her travel ball career with the Corona Angels in second-year 12s. Tyler has had a great career at Heritage High School. She has been a varsity starter since her freshman year. She is a third-year slapper and power hitter with great defensive skills, consistently maintaining above a .900 fielding percentage. She ended her junior season with a .342 batting average with 15 stolen bases and was awarded All-Ivy League League Second Team. She is now a varsity track and field athlete prepared for an amazing season with hopes of getting All-League and more. Tyler plans to major in Psychology and is continuing her academic and softball career at North Carolina Central University.

Tara Skinner, softball

Tara currently plays for Firecrackers Brashear. She has been playing softball since she was 3 years old. She is a scholar-athlete maintaining a 3.5 GPA and plans to continue to excel academically. Tara ended her junior season with 8 wins, 2 losses and a 1.92 ERA as a pitcher. She also batted .325 with 4 home runs. Tara was awarded 2021 League MVP Nominee, 2021 Home Run Leader and All-Ivy League Second Team. Tara plans to major in business management and is continuing her academic and softball career at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Makenna Suarez, soccer

Makenna has had a great career at Heritage High School. She has been a four-year varsity starter. Makenna has shown leadership qualities while being a captain for the team. She was part of the team that won the program’s first league championship. She has had a hand in the program improving, in moving up from Division 6 to a high Division 5 team. The program has done well and moved into the highest league in its conference due to strong team play. Makenna is high on the leaderboard of Heritage High girls soccer stats. She has the most assists in a career and has the second most points scored in a career. She is headed to Florida National University.

Jacob VanRensburg, swimming

Jacob’s first day as a club swimmer was June 2010, and he started when he was just four years old. As a freshman, when Jacob started Heritage High School, he told his mom that he was going to break every school swim record before he graduated and he did this last year as a junior. When Jacob was 10 years old, he was accepted to the USC Salo swim camp, where he spent a week swimming and training with Olympic swimmers. Jacob has also qualified for the Junior Olympics for the last 10 years in multiple events. He has competed at Sectionals the last two years and also competed in the Futures meet in San Jose this last summer. For the last 13 years, Jacob has trained 4-5 days a week and because of his hardwork and dedication he will continue his academic and swim career at Concordia University in Irvine.

Joshua Martinez, baseball

Joshua started playing baseball at such a young age, he was hitting an overhand pitch when he was 18 months old. His parents knew Josh would excel in baseball and all he wanted to do was play, a lot! Along his journey, he was selected to participate in a USA baseball event where only the top 105 players in the country were selected. He was 12 years old. Josh didn’t make it to the final round of 36. He didn’t look at this as a setback but as a challenge. When he was 13, his parents made a decision to enroll Josh in the MLB Academy out of Compton. Twice a week his mom and dad would drive him out there. It was hard; they would get home around 10 p.m. But Josh stuck with it. This led to him being selected to the Hank Aaron Invitational and just this past summer the Breakthrough Series through MLB and USA Baseball. Last year at Heritage he was selected league MVP. He hit .417. He led the team in home runs with 4. On the mound, Josh compiled a 7-1 record with 87 strikeouts and had an outstanding 0.27 ERA, which was third in the state of CA. All of Josh’s hard work has paid off with an athletic scholarship to play baseball at Cal State Northridge.