Top 2030 Prospects To Watch In Southern California

For as long as college softball has been played, Southern California has arguably boasted more elite talent than anywhere else in the United States. From Los Angeles to Orange County and from San Diego to the Inland Empire, Southern California has been sending great players to the best college softball programs in the country for many decades, and that pipeline does not appear to be drying up anytime soon.   Below, Prep Softball highlights five of the top Southern California prospects in the class of 2030.    A true utility player who plays shortstop, second base, third base and all over the outfield, Himeka Rokugawa is known for her speed, defense and high softball IQ. Rokugawa vacuums up just about everything hit her way at short, handling tricky hops with ease, charging in on slowly-hit grounders and effortlessly fielding hot shots. She has a good internal clock and always knows how much time she has to make the throw to first. Rokugawa will also take charge on pop-ups both over the middle of the diamond and in foul territory in the shallow outfield. At the plate, she hits solid singles all over the field and will take an extra base on even the slightest misplay. Any ball she hits to the fence is an easy triple with her speed. Rokugawa also shines in the classroom, carrying a 4.17 GPA.     The awards and accolades have already been pouring in for Taylor Goodwin, a two-time Tier 1 Alliance champion and Most Valuable Player and a two-time USA Softball High Performance Program participant. At the Colorado Sparkler over the summer — held in difficult pitching conditions due to the altitude — Goodwin struck out 39 batters in 24 innings, helping her team finish third in the 82-team event. Since we last wrote about Goodwin <a href="https://prepsoftball.com/2025/09/29/2030-pitchers-showing-poise-beyond-their-years-this-fall/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in our piece on 2030 pitchers showing poise beyond their years</a>, she was named to the all-tournament team at a showcase event at the Big League Dreams complex, where her 14U team faced mostly 16U squads. Goodwin has a deep pitch mix and does well to change hitters' eye levels, and also more than holds her own offensively, hitting eight doubles in Colorado.     Delilah Bui is a two-way player from the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles, pitching and playing the outfield for her middle school team last spring. The right-hander throws an outstanding screwball that darts away from lefties and is very hard to pick up on out of her hand. That pitch also makes righties uncomfortable, leading to awkward-looking swings and batters getting jammed if they make contact at all. Bui's curveball is also an effective pitch, with late horizontal and vertical break that generates whiffs, and she will mix in a changeup as well. Her approach at the plate is to the middle of the field, but she can drive the ball to the farthest reaches of the outfield and circle the bases. Bui has excellent range in center field, making catches on slicing fly balls in the gap that are tailing away from her.     Explosion is an appropriate name for [player_tooltip player_id='145095' first='Jeremie' last='Tavera']'s club team. A powerful lefty bat who throws right-handed, Tavera's bat speed stands out after watching her take just one swing. Even when she does not barrel up the ball, she transfers so much energy from her swing that she will be able to muscle it into the outfield most of the time. When Tavera does make solid contact, the ball jumps off her bat and could be bouncing up against the fence in the blink of an eye. Tavera handles left-handed pitching just as well as righties, and she plays high-level defense at first base, calmly throwing out the lead runner on bunts and scooping throws in the dirt with a nice stretch.     Savannah Taffola was a USA Softball All-American this year and is in the middle of a spectacular fall season, batting .500 with three doubles and six runs batted in at a PGF qualifier event. She has home run power and good pitch recognition skills, stepping away from the plate and pulling her hands in to do damage on inside pitches. Taffola's spray chart covers the entire field, as she can hit hot line drives up the middle, pull sharp grounders for extra-base hits into the corner and inside-out the ball down the opposite-field line. She plays two of the most demanding positions on the field at a high level and has a strong arm behind the plate, with a 1.7-second pop time. Taffola takes her studies seriously as well, holding a 4.0 GPA.

For as long as college softball has been played, Southern California has arguably boasted more elite talent than anywhere else in the United States. From Los Angeles to Orange County and from San Diego to the Inland Empire, Southern California has been sending great players to the best college softball programs in the country for many decades, and that pipeline does not appear to be drying up anytime soon.