Who’s going to state?
Marquee teams, players, coaches in regional title games Saturday at Santa Clara
Two weeks after the Central Coast Section filled Santa Clara University's Leavey Center for its Open Division finals, high school basketball returns to the facility Saturday with four regional championship games, headlined by the storied Bishop O'Dowd boys and national No. 1 Archbishop Mitty girls.
The Bay Area will be represented in all four of the upper- division finals, with no shortage of story lines and talent. Big-time players? How about O'Dowd's Pac-12-bound guards Elijah Hardy and Naseem Gaskin or Mitty's fivestar junior Haley Jones, to name a few? Battle-tested teams? How about the Palo Alto boys and Pinewood, Miramonte and Sacred Heart Cathedral girls, all of which went on the road during the regionals and beat higher-seeded teams to reach this stage? Coaching experience? How about five who have won it all — Mitty's Sue Phillips and Pinewood's Doc Scheppler (six state titles apiece) and O'Dowd's Lou Richie, Palo Alto's Peter Diepenbrock and SHC's LyRyan Russell (one apiece)?
Then there's the story lines …
• O'Dowd is aiming to return to the Open state final for the first time since the Ivan Rabb-led Dragons hoisted the trophy in 2015, when this team's seniors were freshmen. But to get there, O'Dowd will have to get past Sac-Joaquin Section Division I runnerup Sheldon-Sacramento, which is back at SCU one year after losing a heartbreaker to Woodcreek-Roseville in the Open regional final.
“You always talk about leaving your legacy,” O'Dowd senior Ross Williams said after the Dragons edged Modesto Christian 61-58 in a tense semifinal at Oakland's Laney College. “Right now, with the seniors at Bishop O'Dowd, we just want to leave our legacy and that's all.”
• TheMitty girls are two wins from quite a legacy — an undefeated season and the storied program's first Open state title, a championship that slipped through the team's grasp in a crushing statefinal loss to Clovis West last season. But standing in Mitty's way Saturday is old rival Pinewood, which has played Mitty in the CCS Open final at SCU in each of the past three seasons, losing all three.
That includes a 76- 62 loss on March 2 when Mitty's Ania McNicholas and Hunter Hernandez combined for 35 points — 22 above their combined season average.
“That was kind of the plan going in, ‘OK, we're going to let the prove-it-tome's prove it,'” Scheppler said late Tuesday night. “And they did.”
Pinewood had a nice early lead two weeks ago — the norm, it seems, when these teams play — but watched it evaporate in a blink.
“That one run that was like six empties for us and three threes and three twos for them,” Scheppler said. “It was like 22-12, 28-22. We just had a lead. What happened?”
• Pinewood reached the final Saturday with an upset win Tuesday over second-seeded St. Mary'sStockton, the second time in three years that the Panthers have taken down St. Mary's on the road in a regional semifinal.
The championship game that season was hardly memorable for Pinewood as Miramonte and now Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu rolled to a 73- 40 win.
Mitty won't be any easier of a challenge, but Pinewood welcomes the shot.
“We're excited to play Mitty again,” Scheppler said.
• Palo Alto has been on a mission to clear the barrier that knocked the Vikings out last season and here the opportunity is. One year after losing at SCU in overtime to James Logan in the Division I regional final, Palo Alto returns to the Division I final, this time against a Las Lomas team that gave O'Dowd a challenge in the North Coast Section Division II final two weekends ago.
Palo Alto has followed a similar path to the regional final as last season, beating the No. 1 seed in Division I (Heritage this year) in the quarterfinals on the road.
“It's quite the accomplishment,” Diepenbrock said Wednesday. “All it takes is one night, you never know. These guys have been incredibly consistent the last four months. Really it took one pretty amazing shooting performance by Mitty to give us the one loss that we've had in the last three months.”
Mitty hit 14 3-pointers to beat Palo Alto in the CCS Open Division semifinals and won two regional games at home before running into the opponent that Palo Alto will face Saturday.
• Las Lomas (30-3) has had a storybook and historic season, one that began with 15 consecutive victories, reset after backto-back midseason losses to St. Patrick-St. Vincent and Clayton Valley Charter, and picked up steam through the payoffs with win after win, save for the 65-58 loss to O'Dowd. In its 84-70 victory over Mitty at home Tuesday, the Walnut Creek school got 25 points apiece from Nathan Robinson and Robert Prince as it advanced to its first regional boys basketball final in 30 years.
“This was our last home game, so we obviously wanted to come in and make a statement,” Prince said. “We couldn't come out and lose. Everybody in the city came out, so we just had to put on a show.”
• Given their 14-14 record, the Sacred Heart Cathedral girls obviously have not had an entirely smooth ride this season. But the Irish are clearly better than the record, as the team showed in February when it trailedMitty by just three points late in the third quarter before losing by 19. To that point, Mitty had been winning its league contests by an average of 44. Seeded 10th in the Division I regional, SHC beat No, 7 seed Heritage and No. 2 seed Eastside Prep on its way to the final.
• Miramonte has sizzled since a 75-71 loss to O'Dowd in the NCS Division II final two weeks ago. Led by senior point guard Clair Steele, the fourth-seeded Matadors have won three regional games by an average of 24.7 points.
Quick hitters
• History-makers: The Alameda boys, seeded No. 1 in Division II, have thrilled their home fans with three regional playoff wins. They will be back at home Saturday night against St. Mary's-Stockton.
• Road Warriors: Fresh off a Division II regional semifinal win at Eureka — a 646-mile round trip from their San Jose campus — the third-seeded Valley Christian girls will be back on the road Saturday at top seed Pleasant Valley- Chico for the NorCal championship. Throw in the upcoming 420mile round trip, the Warriors (yes, that's their nickname) will have logged 1,066 miles for the week.