Mitty boys looking up at WCAL
Mitty boys basketball coach Tim Kennedy said it before a game was even played, six weeks before the West Catholic Athletic League season, which begins Tuesday.
“I know we say it about every year, but from top to bottom, I don’t think there’s ever been more balance,” he said. “There’s very little separating one through eight.”
Little did he know then that Mitty would enter No. 8.
In fact, the Monarchs (1-8) begin WCAL play as the only team in the league not in The Chronicle’s Top 20 rankings.
With All-WCAL first-teamer Riley Grigsby, a 6-foot-6 forward, returning with solid guards Joseph Vaughn and Devan Sapp, Mitty is plenty good enough to compete at the top half of the league.
But there’s little margin of error.
Mitty, which won state titles with Aaron Gordon in 2011 and 2012, has made too many mistakes while playing a rugged nonleague schedule. The only Bay Area team it has played was No. 7 Dublin, which beat the Monarchs 80-70 in the Gridley tournament.
Mitty closed the Torrey Pines Holiday Classic last week with losses to St. Augustine-San Diego (48-43) and St. Thomas Catholic-Houston (63-62).
“There’s not just balance, but there’s a lot of talent,” Kennedy said.
A look at last year’s AllLeague team certainly reveals that.
Grigsby is one of four returning first-team picks. The others are Co-Players of the Year Jake Wojcik (Bellarmine) and Logan Johnson (St. Francis) and lightningquick 5-10 St. Ignatius guard Darrion Trammell.
Five of the seven secondteamers also return: Parker McDonald and Jack Wilson (Serra), Emmett Neal Jr. (Sacred Heart Cathedral), Matt Redmond (St. Ignatius) and James Chun (Riordan).
In Tuesday’s openers (all of which start at 7:30 p.m.), No. 19 Sacred Heart Cathedral is at Mitty, No. 16 Riordan visits No. 10 St. Francis, No. 4 Bellarmine travels to No. 11 St. Ignatius and No. 14 Serra goes to No. 17 Valley Christian.
Serra is coming off a championship at the Bambauer Classic.
The Padres were without McDonald (illness), a 6-3 junior guard, and Wilson (a 7-footer who is out for the season with a back injury), but defeated then-13th-ranked University 57-48 behind a 20-point, 11-rebound game from tournament MVP Colin McCarthy, a 6-3 senior. Denzel McCollum , a 6-3 senior, scored 16 points in the title game, and Masie Mohammadi was named to the all-tourney team.
Cade Rees, a 6-6 junior, is also out for the season with a knee injury, leaving the Padres with one player taller than 6-3.
That brings into light the league’s biggest addition this season: Serra coach Chuck Rapp, who missed last season with a hip injury. The 2015 Cal-Hi Sports boys basketball Coach of the Year, Rapp is 317-139 in his 16 seasons and led the Padres to a state title in 2014-15.
The only unbeaten team is Valley Christian, under second-year coach Mark DeLuca, who led Berkeley to a NorCal title two seasons ago. He boasts the best height in the league with 6-9 junior Jay Allen-Tovar, 6-7 Cameron Fini and 6-6 Arya Balaji.
Riordan is at the other end of the height chart, but has lights-out shooting, especially from Chun, who made nine three-pointers and scored 31 points in a wild, 74-72 win over Stuart Hall on Dec. 21. Riordan, which fought back from a 22-point deficit, also got 22 points from 6-1 sophomore point guard Je’Lani Clark.
WCAL girls: There’s no such balance in the WCAL girls race, but that’s only because Mitty is so good.
Last year, there was discussion that the Monarchs — who lost 44-40 to Clovis-West in the state title game — might have been the best girls team the area has ever produced.
That talk has resurfaced for the current version of the Monarchs after Mitty easily won the Platinum Division of the West Coast Jamboree at Clayton Valley-Concord last week. That came on the heels of winning the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix.
On Saturday, Mitty, ranked No. 1 in the nation by MaxPreps, pummeled a good Folsom team 89-42 in the championship game behind a nearly flawless 33-point second quarter. The Monarchs got 23 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and five steals from 6-1 junior Haley Jones, the division MVP.
University of San Diego signee Nicole Blakes added 14 points and five steals, and Ania McNicholas and freshman point guard Hunter Hernandez contributed 14 and 12 points, respectively.
Folsom (11-2) had defeated second-ranked Salesian-Richmond 62-57 in the semifinals.
Three other WCAL teams are ranked this week, led by undefeated Presentation, which is ranked ninth. The WCAL girls season doesn’t begin until next week.