Monday’s CCS basketball playoffs: Where things stand in Open Division pool play after Round 2
Girls: Pinewood wins but not yet in final
The Pinewood girls have overcome an injury-ravaged season to put themselves in position for a ninth consecutive trip to the Central Coast Section Open Division championship game.
After winning at home over Palo Alto 54-46 on Monday night to improve to 2-0 in pool play, the Los Altos Hills school will advance to Friday’s final with a victory on Wednesday at Sacred Heart Cathedral.
If Pinewood loses, SHC will move on to the final unless Palo Alto beats St. Ignatius on Wednesday.
If Palo Alto and SHC win, Pool B will end in a three-way tie for first.
The tiebreaker will go to Palo Alto.
Here’s why:
Palo Alto would have wins over No. 2 seed SHC and No. 6 seed St. Ignatius for a total of eight points.
SHC would have wins over No. 3 Pinewood and No. 6 SI for a total of nine points.
Pinewood would have wins over No. 6 SI and No. 7 Palo Alto for a total of 13 points.
The team with the lowest points (Palo Alto) advances.
“Wow,” Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler said. “I get it.”
For Pinewood on Monday, Ava Uhrich had 15 points and 14 rebounds and Jolyn Ding scored all 13 of her points in the fourth quarter after going 0 for 10 through three periods. She made eight free throws down to stretch to help ice the victory.
The Panthers also got 12 points from Alex Facelo and 11 from Lita Fakapelea.
The winner of Pool B will face top-seeded Archbishop Mitty in the final. The San Jose powerhouse clinched its spot in the championship game with another rout on Monday to win Pool A.
Scheppler said it would be a significant accomplishment if his team were to play in the final.
“If like winning league was a major achievement, this would be like another crowning moment in our program because of what we have been through injury-wise,” Scheppler said.
Boys: Stakes high for Mitty, Serra
When it comes to playoff basketball, it doesn’t get much better than a winner-take-all game for a spot in a final.
Such is the case in Pool A of the CCS Open Division playoffs.
Archbishop Mitty and Serra set up that scenario with comfortable home wins on Monday night to improve to 2-0 in the four-team pod.
No. 4 seed Serra beat No. 8 Santa Cruz 65-53 behind Ryan Pettis’ 22 points and Marcel Elicagaray’s 15. Top-seeded Mitty drubbed St. Ignatius 67-43 thanks to 23 points from Princeton-bound Derek Sangster and 19 from Gavin Ripp.
The winner between Serra (16-10) and Mitty (21-4) on Wednesday will play the Pool B survivor on Friday night at Santa Clara University for the championship.
For Mitty coach Tim Kennedy, the showdown is an opportunity to face his mentor Chuck Rapp, who gave the former Serra star his first coaching job by allowing Kennedy to coach the school’s JV team in the mid-2000s.
“I had Tim practice with us on the varsity and guard (then-Serra star) Decensae White, which made Decensae a better player,” Rapp remembered. “Then Tim would go grab a quick shower, and then come out and do the JV practice.”
“I feel like I got coaching 101 with him,” Kennedy said about his time on Rapp’s staff. “I know how he prepares his teams, and they’re always going to be ready to compete.”
If Mitty is to make it to an eighth CCS Open Division final, and fourth in a row, Kennedy figures it will be a low-scoring grind. He laughed when asked if he thought the game would end 95-90.
“Offensively, you might not hit shots every game, but the way you compete and defend, you can always bring that to the table,” Kennedy said. “That’s something you have control of.”
Serra started 0-4 in West Catholic Athletic League play but won seven of its last 10 thanks to a rededication to defense. Rapp doesn’t expect the game to be high-scoring, either. Mitty won the first two games between the teams, 54-33 and 67-56.
“When you play a team three times, there’s not a lot of secrets there,” Rapp said. “They have an idea of what we’re going to do, and we have an idea of what they are too.”
Boys: Riordan bounces back. Now what?
Archbishop Riordan will need help to have a chance to defend its CCS Open Division title.
The Crusaders did their part Monday, beating Menlo-Atherton 58-53.
Now the San Francisco school needs a win at home over Sacred Heart Prep and M-A to win at home against Sacred Heart Cathedral — both games are Wednesday night — to advance to the final for the third consecutive season.
If SHP, SHC and Riordan tie for first in Pool B, SHC will win the tiebreaker and play in the final.
“I told Mike, ‘Give me one,'” Riordan coach Joe Curtin said of his request to M-A coach Mike Molieri.
Riordan had four players score in double figures Monday: Achilles Woodson (16), Andrew Hilman (12), Jasir Rencher (12) and Nathan Tshamala (10).
Mitty girls: Monarchs keep getting better
Archbishop Mitty, for the 13th time in 26 games, won by more than 40 points when it defeated Branham 78-24 in CCS Open Division pool play on Monday.
Last season’s team, which won the NorCal Open Division title, had only nine such victories after the second game of pool play.
The same Branham team that had slipped past Los Gatos in a three-point thriller fared no better than Crystal Springs Uplands, which lost to Mitty by 63 on Friday.
Top-seeded Mitty (24-2) will play host to Los Gatos on Wednesday, a team that lost to Crystal Springs 39-25 on Monday night.
As if the Monarchs weren’t dominant enough, superstar junior Morgan Cheli has returned from her near-season-long absence with zero signs of rust.
Cheli scored 13 points against Branham (21-5), just a few days after she poured in 22 against Crystal Springs. Two of those points came on a play in which she quickly spun around her defender along the baseline for a layup.
“Morgan is quick, agile and springy…opposing players and coaches would agree,” Mitty coach Sue Phillips wrote via text.
Freshman phenom McKenna Woliczko, who burst onto the scene after Cheli’s injury in December, scored 20 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a little over a half of play. April Chan had eight points, and Elana Weisman finished with seven points and nine rebounds.