High schools: Huge Metro representation in NorCal basketball, soccer tournaments
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One of the more memorable high school basketball postseasons in recent memory - highlighted with back-to-back down-to-the-wire North Coast Section boys games at San Leandro High School on Saturday night - feeds into this week's CIF Northern California tournament, which opens Tuesday.
A whopping 78 Metro teams (40 boys, 38 girls) qualified for NorCals, which conclude March 10 with the champions advancing to the state finals at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on March 12-13.
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Among the top storylines:
- Coming off two of the more dominating Central Coast Section Open runs with convincing title wins Friday at USF, Riordan's boys and the Mitty girls are the top Open Division seeds and have earned first-round byes. Neither will play until Saturday; first-round Open action begins Wednesday.
- Riordan (27-1), which smashed depleted St. Ignatius 73-51 in Friday's section final behind the USF-bound connection of Andrew Hilman (14 points, 11 rebounds seven assists) and JP Pihtovs (17 points, five blocks), earned the top seed over No. 2 Salesian-Richmond (27-3). The Pride are coming off a hair-raising 51-49 NCS Open title win over Clayton Valley Charter-Concord at San Leandro thanks to a last-second steal and coast-to-coast drive and layup from Stanford-bound Elias Obenyah. Riordan awaits the winner of De La Salle-Concord at Modesto Christian, while Salesian, which also earned a first-round bye, will host the Sheldon-Sacramento vs. St. Ignatius winner.
- The Mitty girls (26-2), ranked third nationally, recorded the most lopsided CCS Open final margin ever, 90-31 over Riordan behind 27 points on 13-of-15 shooting and four blocks from McDonald's All-American McKenna Woliczko. The Monarchs will play Wednesday's San Ramon Valley-Danville (25-4) at Carondelet-Concord (25-5) winner. Carondelet pulled off the biggest stunner Saturday with a 50-49 NCS Open win over San Ramon Valley-Danville, which had defeated Carondelet handily twice during the regular season and eight consecutive times overall. San Ramon Valley coach John Cristiano predicted after Saturday's game they would see Carondelet, led by a combined 38 points from Niylah Christopher, Maleka Brown and Layla Dixon, again and sure enough the rematch came sooner than later. On the other side of the bracket, Sac-Joaquin Section power St. Mary's-Stockton (25-2) and Central Section champion Clovis West (29-3) play Saturday.
- De La Salle (24-7), which lost to Salesian in the semifinals but beat Doherty Valley-San Ramon 74-63 in a Friday third-place game, got the surprise nod into the Open Division over Clayton Valley which was seeded higher at NCS. State officials admitted that a request by the Spartans to move to the highest tournament was a factor in them getting the bump, which is a much tougher road to a state title than Division 1. "We wanted and felt with our strength of schedule that we deserved a spot at Open, but yes, we were surprised that Clayton Valley didn't get moved up as well," De La Salle coach Marcus Schroeder said. Clayton Valley coach Frank Allocco Jr. was also surprised, but not upset. "We'll simply go where they put us," he said. "We're ready."
- The 16-team Division 1 boys tournament (all divisions save for Open and D-6 - which doesn't compete for a state title - are 16 teams) is absolutely stacked with nine local teams including second-seed Clayton Valley (26-4), which hosts Lincoln-Stockton (22-8). The field also includes NCS Division 1 champion Bishop O'Dowd-Oakland (23-7), which needed 25 second-half points including the last two buckets in seven seconds by GJ Hill-Thomas to pull out a wild 79-76 win over Granada-Livermore. The Dragons are the 12th seed and travel to play No. 5 Clovis North (19-13).
- The all-Metro D1 boys matchups Tuesday are No. 9 seed The King's Academy-Sunnyvalle (23-4) at No. 8 Marin Catholic-Kentfield (24-4) and No. 13 Oakland (23-7) at No. 4 Mitty (17-10). Bellarmine (17-10) and Moreau Catholic-Hayward (23-5) have long road trips while Dougherty Valley-San Ramon (21-10) hosts Destiny Christian-Sacramento.
- Oakland, which was missing injured league MVP D'Ari Bruce - one of the state's top freshmen - lost in the Oakland Section final 49-47 to five-time defending champion Oakland Tech. But the Wildcats got the nod over the Bulldogs, who open Division 2 play at home as the sixth seed against No. 11 Milpitas (26-1), which won its first CCS title since 1997 with a 49-36 win over Los Gatos. Tech got a combined 31 points from Brandon Woodards and Saddiq Alarbesh in Friday's title win.
- The University boys (27-5) won their eighth NCS title and fifth since 2019 with an 81-69 D2 home victory over St. Mary's-Berkeley and thought it had earned a top D1 seed, but instead is No. 5 in Division 2 and hosts No. 12 Placer-Auburn (29-3). University is led by Metro Player of the Year candidate Lucas Lau who had 24 points Saturday.
- Other San Francisco schools that will host are Lincoln boys (D4, fourth seed), Sacred Heart Cathedral boys (D4, sixth seed) and Washington girls (D5, eighth seed).
State wrestling: Liberty-Brentwood senior David Calkins Jr. highlighted a banner day for Bay Area wrestlers at Saturday's state championships in Bakersfield. The Iowa-bound 215-pound standout and reigning junior world medalist in Greco-Roman won a 6-5 decision over Oakdale's West Burford in the final. The four-time NCS champion entered the tournament 38-0.
Calkins was the only Metro boys state champion, but Oakland Tech's Shayna Ward (135 pounds) and Granada's SJ Martin (120) won girls state titles. Other female area state placers: Maile Nguyen (Granada, 125, sixth), Anakarla Hernandez (St. Helena, 145, fourth), Symone Jewell (Northgate-Walnut Creek, 155, third), Aiyanna Beane (American Canyon, 170, third), Rosalyn Diaz (Liberty, 190, fifth).
Two other NCS wrestlers to place are brothers from Del Norte-Crescent City in Thunder Lewis (126, third) and Wyatt Lewis (157, second). Thunder Lewis placed at state for a fourth straight season.
NorCal soccer: Thirty-one Metro teams (17 girls, 14 boys) open NorCal play Tuesday for a 10-division (five boys, five girls) one-week tournament that concludes Saturday.
Lowell girls (Division 5) are the only team to defend their NorCal title in the same division as the top seed. Other local top seeds are Branson-Ross boys (D5) and Marin Catholic-Kentfield girls (D4). Other defending champions from the region are Mountain View boys (D2), Archie Williams-San Anselmo boys (D3), Piedmont boys (D5), St. Francis girls (D1), Maria Carrillo-Santa Rosa (D3) and Sacred Heart Prep-Atherton girls (D4).
Freelance writer Mitch Stephens has covered high school sports for the Chronicle since 2001. Email: [email protected]
This article originally published at High schools: Huge Metro representation in NorCal basketball, soccer tournaments.