Tribune names SLO County Player of Year, all-stars in girls basketball
A four-year varsity player who led her team to a Sunset League title and league MVP selection has been named this year’s Tribune San Luis Obispo County player of the year in high school girls basketball.
Morro Bay High’s Violet Pace, a 5-foot-11 senior forward, eclipsed 1,000 career points and excelled in multiple facets of the game.
Pace averaged 16.2 points per game, 7 rebounds per game, 3 assists, 3 steals and 1.3 blocks, and she finished fourth all-time in career scoring, with 1,235 points.
Pace was a formidable force in Central Coast basketball, leading her team to a 21-7 record and a league title with an 8-2 mark, as well as winning two games in the CIF-Central Section Division 3 playoffs en route to a semifinal run before falling to Shafter.
“She can do almost anything on the court,” Pirates Coach Alex Engel said. “This was while she was routinely face-guarded, boxed-and-oned or double-teamed. Nobody else in our area faced as much defensive attention as her.”
For a full list of Tribune first-team, second-team and honorable mention SLO County selections, see below.
Four-Year Journey
Pace joined the Morro Bay program as a 5-foot-8 freshman, and steadily improved her game over the course of four years, growing 3 inches in the process by the time she was a senior.
Serving as a role player alongside talented teammates like Tailer Morrison, Georgie Wheeler and Fiona Durham on a 24-8 team as a sophomore, Pace steadily grew into a leadership role and became the team’s top player.
“She wasn’t a ball hog, she wasn’t selfish, she really kind of just took the role as it came to her and just elevated her game each year,” Engel said. “Her freshman and sophomore years, she was a really good player, but she had three really good seniors above her. On a lot of teams, she would have probably been a first or a second option already as a sophomore. But she never complained.”
Pace strived to improve continually, a work ethic that helped change the course of the team’s culture.
“Her freshman year, I’d open up the gym for extra workouts,” said Engel, relating a story he told at a season’s year-end team banquet. “She was the only one showing up, and the rest of the girls weren’t showing up.”
Engel recalled the Pirates coming off a winnable game at Thanksgiving break that they lost. “I had a pretty stark conversation with them in the locker room about, ‘Hey, you guys want to talk about wanting to win all these games, but none of you show up for workouts, except for Violet,” Engel said. “I said, ‘Why is my freshman working harder than everyone else? You guys are supposed to be more experienced.’”
Engel added: “The next day, I told the team, ‘I’m going to open the gym. We’ll see who shows up the next day.’ Every girl on that team was in the gym, and then the rest of the year, that kind of became the standard, and that has continued to be the standard.”
How Violet Pace developed into Morro Bay’s leader
Pace additionally finished with 627 career rebounds (seventh all-time in school history), 177 career three-pointers made (second all-time in school history, with records dating back to 2002), and 274 career assists.
“It was a big jump from eighth grade to playing against these older girls, so freshman year was just all new to me,” Pace said. “And then just as the years went by, it got easier, and I improved more. I got taller and stronger, which helped. My shooting percentage went up from all the practicing in the offseason each year, and so definitely, senior year, I was a lot more comfortable, and my confidence from freshman year went up.”
During the course of the year, Morro Bay beat each of the SLO County teams they played in Atascadero, San Luis Obispo, Mission Prep, Templeton and Nipomo.
Pace was among a deep, tall team with four players around 5-foot-11. They worked on their press defense to force turnovers and making teams uncomfortable.
“We would fall into a press, a zone press, and just try and create chaos for teams and make them make mistakes,” Pace said. “We used fundamental techniques like pushing them to the weaker hand or sometimes going to zone if they weren’t a strong shooting team. Everyone on our team could contribute, even if they weren’t scoring. We were good defensively and had good team chemistry on the court and off.”
Engel said outside of the normal practices and games, team dinners and team bonding, as well as tournaments, help build success.
“We go play in tournaments in June. We’re playing in tournaments in the spring and fall,” Engel said. “The preparation for this year started in April of last year, and so it’s not something that we just show up in November and say ‘Let’s go.’ I think that was a big part of the team success, and Violet’s individual success as well, is that those bonds that they shared.”
First team
Bailey Hartford, San Luis Obispo
Kate Harrington, Paso Robles
Zoe Fitzwater, Morro Bay
Jacey George, Atascadero
Ellie Sloan, Arroyo Grande
Second team
Taylen Robson, Morro Bay
Gabriela Barroso, Templeton
McKenna Nichols, Atascadero
Gwen Nelson, Mission Prep
Genesis Gavilanes, Paso Robles
Honorable mention
Chloe Bronson, Arroyo Grande
Madison Long, Nipomo
Ali Abercrombie, San Luis Obispo
Mia Purchase, Atascadero
McCoy Sill, Paso Robles
Laney Arnold, Atascadero
Tori Holbrook, Paso Robles
Ellie Horton, Nipomo
Cameron Delaney, Templeton
This story was originally published March 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
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