Napa’s Carlos Diaz was signed last week by W Connection, a soccer club from Trinidad and Tobago which plays in the TT Pro League of Trinidad.

Diaz is a striker who played for Vintage High School and Saint Mary’s College of Moraga. W Connection plays its home games at Manny Ramjohn Stadium and the club is based at Sevilla Club in Couva.

Diaz began his pro career playing as a forward/striker for Ferencvarosi TC, a Second-Division club which plays in the eastern group of the Hungarian National Championship II. Ferencvarosi TC is known as the “Green Eagles” and “Green and White.”

He was named First-Team All-West Coast Conference for Saint Mary’s as a freshman midfielder. At Saint Mary’s, Diaz led the WCC in assists (11), the most by a freshman in the country that season, and was second in points (15) in 2005.

A left-footed kicker, he has also played with the U-20 U.S. men’s national soccer team.

Diaz is one of the best soccer players to come out of the Napa Valley. He was the Player of the Year on the All-Napa County team, leading Vintage to the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I title in the fall of 2004. He was chosen First-Team All-Monticello Empire League and was also named to The Sacramento Bee’s All-Metro Team.

Before going to Hungary, the 2005 Vintage graduate was playing for the San Francisco Seals, an amateur team that plays in the Southwest Division of the Premier Development League of United Soccer Leagues, as a midfielder/forward.

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Taylor Bickell of Napa took second place in the girls championship flight of the Northern California Golf Association’s Junior Tour Fall Series III tournament over the weekend at Foxtail Golf Club in Rohnert Park.

Bickell had rounds of 75 and 73 for a 148 total and finished one shot out of first place.

It was the third stop in the NCGA’s six-week fall series.

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American Canyon High School principal Mark Brewer is my guest in October on Napa Community Public Access TV. The new school in south Napa County will open its doors to freshmen and sophomores in the fall of 2010.

The half-hour show, “Register Sports with Marty James,” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. and Mondays at noon on Napa Valley TV-Channel 28.

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The state CIF will implement the National Federation of High Schools softball pitching distance rule from 40 to 43 feet in the academic school year of 2010-11.

Although the new pitching distance is mandatory with the 2010-11 school year, NFHS member state high school associations had the option to adopt the 43-foot distance this season. Creating a better balance between offense and defense was the major rationale for the rule change, the CIF said.

Softball is the fourth-most popular sport among girls at the high school level with 371,293 participants nationwide during the 2007-08 season, according to an NFHS survey.

It ranks fifth in the state with 31,801 athletes. 

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The starting quarterback for Jesuit High School-Carmichael is Ben Miroglio, a junior, whose father, David Miroglio, was a two-sport star (football-basketball) at Justin-Siena before going on to play football at Santa Clara University.

Ben is listed at 6-foot-5, 215 pounds. He also carries a 4.0 GPA.

Miroglio threw two touchdown passes in Jesuit’s 42-28 nonleague win over Golden Valley.

David Miroglio is from Napa and was a quarterback for Santa Clara.

E-mail Executive Sports Editor Marty James at mjames@napanews.com or call 256-2223.