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Bellarmine soars past St. Francis
For the fifth year in a row, the Bells will compete for a CCS Open Division boys basketball championship.
No. 3 seed Bellarmine left no doubt it deserved a return ticket to the title game after a 57-28 dismantling of No. 7 St. Francis.
“Every year that I’ve been here we’ve been going to CCS Open, it’s amazing,” said Bellarmine senior Ian Elam, who finished with a game-high 15 points. “I feel truly blessed.”
The Bells (23-3) jumped out to a 10-0 lead, but it didn’t stop there.
St. Francis (15-11), which split the regular-season meetings against its West Catholic Athletic League rival, found itself behind 29-9 just before halftime — until a 3-pointer in the final 10 seconds.
“This is honestly a dream come true,” Bellarmine senior Anthony Piro said.
He added: “You’re going to win a game holding a team to only 28 points. And then the offense comes from that.”
Bellarmine led by as much as 33 points before emptying its bench with under three minutes left in the third quarter.
“We’re always pedal to the metal,” said Piro, who drained a couple of early treys and accounted for 10 points, while point guard Quinn Denker contributed 12 points.
Mitty vs. Bellarmine: Rubber match in more ways than one
Bellarmine also split its regular-season matchups with Archbishop Mitty, the No. 1 seed and other finalist in the Open Division.
Turns out the two teams traded CCS titles in 2017 and 2018.
“Each game, each year is different and probably deserves its own book,” Bellarmine coach Patrick Schneider said. “But if we rebound, we have a chance. If we don’t rebound, we don’t have a chance.”
Tip-off for Friday night’s final is scheduled for 8 p.m.
“From the first day we start basketball, from the first we start practice, open gym, our coaches always stressed to us this is the end point,” Denker said.
Stanford last hosted the CCS championships in 1982.
Bellarmine, which advanced to its 20th section final, didn’t make its debut in a title game until 1993.
But its coach is not unfamiliar when it comes to Maples Pavilion.
“The first CCS basketball game I saw in my life, I was a high school freshman at S.I. watching S.I. lose to Kurt Rambis’ Cupertino team,” Schneider said. “And I could remember driving down on the 280 with my dad to see that game. The history of that game at that site is phenomenally exceptional for our section this year and we’re just so grateful and appreciative of the fact that we have a chance to go do this on Friday.”
Cardinal Newman star scores 43 points to stun Salesian girls
Anya Choice only received 1.9 seconds of rest. That’s all she needed.
Choice dropped an electrifying 43 points, 34 coming in the second half. She splashed eight three-pointers, willing No. 3 seed Cardinal Newman to a 64-59 victory over No. 2-seed Salesian to advance to the North Coast Section Open Division final.
n a stunning second half, Choice, who also finished with four rebounds, four assists and five steals, scored Cardinal Newman’s first 23 points and drilled seven of her eight threes, including a mesmerizing step back at the top of the key that sent those in attendance into a frenzy.
Salesian led 51-46 with 5:02 remaining in regulation, but Choice and Cardinal Newman locked in on offense and outscored Salesian 18-8 over the final five minutes to secure the win.
For the Pride, Silvia Fonongaloa had 10 points and 11 rebounds.and Alexsandra Alvarado led the team with 13 points. Alyssa Jackson stuffed the stat sheet off the bench as well, totaling six points, seven rebounds and three assists.
Statement win for St. Joseph Notre Dame girls
A statement win for a No. 1 seed? You betcha. St. Joseph Notre Dame, although it was 15-3 since Jan. 11, was only 3-3 against non-league opponents entering Wednesday’s North Coast Section Open Division semifinal. The Pilots were also facing a traditional powerhouse in Bishop O’Dowd.
But after a shaky start, St. Joseph Notre Dame (22-7) bounced back from a 14-point deficit early in the second quarter to catch the visiting Dragons (20-7) with three minutes, 20 seconds left in the game.
The Pilots scored the last 11 points in the 54-48 victory.
At halftime, they trailed 32-24.
“We just said, stick to the game plan, energy first and foremost and don’t give up,” St. Joseph Notre Dame interim coach Brian Sato said. “Stay engaged, don’t give up and don’t dwell. I said this team is too good, too fast. This game is going to be so fast that you can’t dwell on missed shots, missed layups, just stay engaged and move onto the next play.”
“This was a good one for us. We really dug deep,” said the Pilots’ Makena Mastora, who scored five of her 10 points in the final 3:50 of the game. “(At halftime), we were all just giving our input and saying how much we needed this win because this one was a personal one for us. Without Hip, with our biggest games, we needed one of these wins for us.”
St. Joseph Notre Dame coach Shawn Hipol resigned from the program in January because, according to Bay Area News Group sources, an SJND administrator not in the athletic department took exception to a 91-4 rout of Redwood Christian on Jan. 7. The Pilots, who led 69-2 at halftime, had regularly won Bay Counties League East games by large margins and will be switching from the small private school league to a larger league next season.
Mastora said that the team received a text from Hipol after Wednesday’s game, telling the girls that they would be playing Cardinal Newman for the championship.
We’re doing this season for him, it’s for him,” she said.
Talana Lepolo and Malia Mastora both had 11 points to lead St. Joseph Notre Dame.
Turnovers plague O’Dowd
Wednesday’s game couldn’t have started much better for O’Dowd as the Dragons bolted out to a 14-4 lead in the first five minutes of the game.
But it couldn’t put away St. Joseph Notre Dame.
“All year we played presses and have been fine,” said Bishop O’Dowd coach Malik McCord about the Pilots’ defensive pressure. “We just stunk it up with turnovers.”
He also said that missed open layups and inconsistency on officials’ calls played a part in the loss, “but at the end of the day, we’ve got to finish the game.”
Kayla Hankins came off the bench to lead O’Dowd in scoring with 16 points, and teammate Skylar McGlockton added 10 points.
Mitty girls in a familiar spot — CCS Open final
If not for Archbishop Mitty, Pinewood might be going for its fifth straight Central Coast Section Open Division title. But Mitty is the gold standard in the CCS playoffs and Friday night the Monarchs will try to beat Pinewood for the fifth consecutive season in the section’s Open Division final.
Mitty reached the title game with a 62-31 victory over St. Ignatius in the semifinals Wednesday at Gunn.
It was another night of balanced offense for coach Sue Phillips’ team as 13 players scored, led by Olivia Williams’ 11. Marley Langi added eight points and Siena Guttadauro and Katie Springs each finished with six.
Mitty will bring a 16-game winning streak into the title game at Maples Pavilion.
Trilogy can’t live up to the hype for Pinewood, Menlo
Pinewood vs. Menlo School III couldn’t live up wasn’t nearly as competitive as the previous two meetings.
The West Bay Athletic League foes split regular-season matchups, but in the other CCS Open Division semifinal at Gunn it was all Pinewood, 58-33.
The Panthers (23-3) led 29-13 at the half.
“We got them out of sorts, and they’re a very good team,” Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler said. “I don’t think they played their best today, far from their best. And if we get credit for that, I mean, great. We didn’t do anything really any different than we did the first two games.”
Menlo (20-6), last year’s CIF Division II state champion, got a team-high 14 points from point guard Avery Lee, while post Sharon Nejad contributed 10.
Pinewood was led by three-year starter Courtni Thompson and her game-high 16 points.
“She’s just kind of rounding into comfort,” said Scheppler, who added Thompson battled past a couple of injuries.
Una Jovanovic and Maia Garcia also cracked double-digits for the Panthers with 12 and 10 points, respectively.
Mitty vs. Pinewood, again
This is a sixth straight shot at the Open Division final for Pinewood, which lost its previous four tries to Mitty.
“We have to take care of the ball and rebound,” Scheppler said. “It’s no different than we’ve ever played them before.”
He added: “They play really hard, that’s something to be admired. But we’ve been looking forward to this game for a while.”
