Teachers, students and community members are invited to return to the baseball diamond at Tomales High School for the first time in five years for a memorial game and fundraiser honoring Jake Velloza, a lifelong Inverness resident and three-sport athlete who was killed in 2009 while serving his country in Iraq.
The game, which will take place on May 18, will pit teachers and community members against a combined team of Tomales High’s baseball and softball players. Over the past eight years, the event has raised over $72,000 for scholarships for graduating students.
The recipient of multiple military medals, ribbons and badges, Mr. Velloza grew up playing Little League. He was precocious, learning how machines and engines worked when he wasn’t playing sports. In his sophomore year, he built a minibike in the school’s popular metal shop.
Throughout high school, Mr. Velloza was a star quarterback, an ace pitcher and a top runner for the track team. According to an obituary by the Los Angeles Times, he once won several events at a morning track meet, and then pitched a no-hitter in the afternoon, scoring a homerun and winning the game for Tomales. For the football team, Mr. Velloza played wingback, defensive back, kick returner and kicker on a team that won the 2002 North Coast Section Class B championship with an 8-4 record.
“I think he knew from the first day he got into high school that he was going into the military,” Leon Feliciano, his football coach at Tomales, told the Associated Press in 2009. “We talked about college, but he said, ‘No, Coach, I want to be a ranger doing special ops.’ He was set on his goals.”
After graduating in 2004, Mr. Velloza spent a stint reading water meters for North Marin Water District, where his grandfather worked for 21 years, before he joined the Army in 2006.
When his parents asked him why he wanted to join the military, he cited the 9/11 attack, saying he wanted to make the world a better place when the time came to raise his own family.
After two years of training, Mr. Velloza was deployed to Baqubah, Iraq on Sept. 1, 2006 for his first tour of duty. There he manned Humvees, drove tanks and transported officers to and from Baghdad. He returned to America for more training and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. He was sent on his second deployment in late 2008. This time, the location was to be top secret.
Mr. Velloza was 22 when he was killed in an attack carried out by Iraqi soldiers on May 2, 2009. In addition to Mr. Velloza, California native Jeremiah P. McCleery was also killed and three more were injured. Mr. Velloza left behind his parents, Susan and Robert Velloza, and his fiancée, Danielle Erwin.
The Jake Velloza Memorial Baseball Game starts at noon on Saturday, May 18, at the Tomales High School baseball field. Donations encouraged; admission to play is $15. Open to all.