CIF-SDS playoff seedings announced for basketball
Special to this Newspaper
The CIF-San Diego Section announced their 2023 Divisional Playoff brackets following Zoom meetings on Saturday morning with action beginning tonight, February 13th, in girls’ basketball with the boys’ beginning play tomorrow night.
And while both the Imperial High Tigers boys’ and girls’ teams won door-die championship games last week to finish as Imperial Valley League co-champions and top seeds in the upcoming CIF playoffs, the basketball Gods were not smiling on them on Saturday.
In fact, neither coach David Milan’s boys nor coach Rich Ponchione’s girls came away from the pairing meeting with a home opening game, as IVL
CIF Southeastern Conference representatives, both participating in the Zoom meetings as they were paired with higher-seeded league champions.
For Ponchione, his twelfth-seeded IVL co-champions Tigers, the Southeastern Conference’s highest divisional team, will open up Division I play tonight fifth-seeded Fallbrook High (217, 10-0 Valley League), in a rematch of the 2022 D-I championship game won by the Warriors.
“We got very unlucky being the twelfth seed as not getting a top-four seed as an opponent in the first round was good,” Ponchione said. “You will see them later in the playoffs but it is nice to get someone you can be competitive with and hopefully get a win.”
While naturally disappointed not to get a home game, Ponchione also pointed out that there are obviously many good teams in Division I and that the Tigers, who also fell last year in the 2023 D-I championship game, have had success away from the Valley.
“I agree with the idea that good defenses travel and we’ve shown we can go on the road and play well against tough teams this season,” Ponchione said. “We’ve gone on the road and done well before...and there are a lot of champions in D-I so it’s pick your poison.”
In a bit of irony that is the CIF-SDS playoffs, while the Imperial girls travel to San Diego’s North County, the D-III sixth-seeded IVL co-champion Palo Verde Yellowjackets will have a home game in Blythe tonight.
Palo Verde (16-10, 6-2 IVL) will host Division III eleventh-seeded Point Loma High Pointers as this will be the Yellowjackets’ third division in three years after they won the CIF Division V title in 2022 and the CIF Division IV last year over the Central Spartans.
In addition to Palo Verde, the Southeastern Conference will be well-represented tonight with four more teams in the CIF Division III girls’ playoffs led by the seventh-seeded Desert League champion Vincent Memorial (13-5, 9-0 DL) who will host San Diego’s tenth-seeded Hoover High Cardinals in Calexico.
Meanwhile, in other Division III girls’ games tonight, ninth-seeded Calexico Bulldogs (14-10, 9-3 IVL) will play eighth-seeded University City High in San Diego, the twelfth-seeded Central Spartans (10-14, 3-5 IVL) be in Santee to meet fifth-seeded West Hills High and the thirteenth-seeded Brawley Wildcats (14-11, 6-3 DL) play at fourth-seeded Vista High.
In tonight’s only game in the Valley, in CIF Division V action will see the sixth-seeded Southwest Eagles (7-20, 3-6 DL) host the D-V’s eleventh-seeded High Tech High of Chula Vista.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 14th, will mark the start of the CIFSDS boys’ basketball playoffs with quarterfinal games scheduled for this Saturday, while action in the’ CIF girls playoff brackets continues on Friday.
The Imperial Tiger boys (12-15, 5-2 IVL), the twelfth-seeded IVL co-champions open the 2024 CIF Division III playoffs traveling Wednesday night to meet the fifth-seeded Point Loma High Pointers who were champions of San Diego’s Western League.
For Milan, whose Tigers won the CIF-SDS Division IV championship last season and who upgraded his schedule to prepare for the D-III playoffs, losing the home game seems like an ironic twist of fate.
“It’s like we get into these advisory meetings and when we aren’t seeded where we think we should, they suggest we play a harder schedule,” Milan said. “And we did... but it didn’t help us because we lost to some good teams...I guess it comes down to wins and not competition.”
In other Division III games on Wednesday night, the IVL co-champion and seventh-seeded Vincent Memorial Catholic High Scots (17-7, 6-2 IVL) will host tenth-seeded Maranatha Christian High in Calexico, while the fifteenth-seeded Central Spartans (13-12, 5-3 IVL) will play at second-seeded La Jolla High in San Diego.
Also Wednesday in CIF Division II playoff action, the sixteenth-seeded Calexico Bulldogs of coach Hugo Estrada will travel to San Diego to meet the D-II’s top-seeded Rancho Buena Vista Longhorns, the Division IV tenth-seeded Brawley Wildcats (1513, 6-3 DL) will play the Clairemont High Chieftains in San Diego while in Division V action the Holtville Vikings (10-12, 3-6 DL), who drew the sixth-seed, will nonetheless travel to eleventh-seeded but league-champion High Tech High-Mesa.
For the 2024 CIF playoffs, the only Southeastern Conference team earning a first-round bye is the Desert League champion and Division V top-seeded Calipatria Hornets (19-3, 9-0 DL) who will host the winner between eighth-seeded Chula Vista and ninth-seeded Bayfront Academy on Saturday at the Hornets’ Nest.