Boys basketball: Coach of the year
In five seasons as Campolindo’s boys basketball coach, Steven Dyer has guided the Cougars on a steady ascent.
They won a Division II state championship in his third season.
They advanced to the Division I state championship game a year later, a game that was never played because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic continued to affect Campo this spring. Because the North Coast Section chose not to hold playoffs, Dyer loaded his team’s schedule with as many heavyweights as he could to give his players a season they would remember.
The Cougars started 10-0, then pushed pause for a week because of coronavirus contact tracing protocols brought on by an opponent’s positive test, then won five more games to close the season.
They went 15-0 even though two starters from the previous season, Aidan Mahaney and Logan Robeson, missed substantial time or in Robeson’s case didn’t play at all because of injuries.
Campo finished as the Bay Area News Group’s top-ranked team, with victories not only over last year’s season-ending No. 1 team, O’Dowd, but also Salesian, Archbishop Riordan and De La Salle.
The results made Dyer the choice for Bay Area News Group boys basketball coach of the year.
As the season came to an end, Dyer couldn’t say enough about his team’s defense.
“We’ve always had really good individual defenders, but this team has exceeded what my expectations were,” he said in a Bay Area News Group story. “The team defense is the thing that’s been the biggest surprise and what has led us the entire year.”
— Darren Sabedra
Girls basketball: Coach of the year
Doc Scheppler has led Pinewood’s girls basketball team to numerous section, regional and state championships over three decades as coach.
But in the brief history of the Central Coast Section’s Open Division, which made its debut in 2013, Scheppler’s team perennial runner-up.
The Panthers had reached the previous six Open Division finals, no small feat by any measure, but had not hoisted the championship trophy.
That changed this month.
They rallied in the fourth quarter, scored a late basket and exhaled when a last-second shot by Archbishop Mitty did not drop.
Mitty had beaten Pinewood five times in a row in the CCS Open final. The Panthers did not allow the Monarchs to make it six, winning 50-48 on Mitty’s home court.
With no regional playoffs in Northern California this spring, the victory was the final stop for Pinewood in its 17-0 season.
Given his team’s achievement, Scheppler was a clear choice for Bay Area News Group girls basketball coach of the year.
“It’s so sweet,” he said after the final. “So sweet. … It didn’t look good. We hit a couple shots, stayed the course and kept fighting.”
— Darren Sabedra and Evan Webeck
