Help us help you

There are a few coaches and schools that send in every result from every game: win or lose. You’ve probably noticed a lot of their teams in our local sports roundup. There are others who send in results when they’ve won, but tend to “forget” when they lose. But there are several who never send any results.

With only a two-person staff to cover the entire Peninsula Athletic League — as well as several schools in the West Bay Athletic League and Serra and Notre Dame-Belmont out of the West Catholic Athletic League — it is impossible for us to be at every game. And given the fact we have a ton of other responsibilities, it’s difficult for us to call every coach to track down scores.

The simplest and easiest way to increase your team’s chances of making it into the Daily Journal is to email the results to me and Julio Lara, the Daily Journal’s other sports reporter. Not only does it allow us to get more information out to the public about more schools, it allows us to follow, from afar, how well a certain team or player is doing, which can lead to more publicity for that team and his or her school.

Since we’d rather write about a game than simply put in a box score, please include the final score, score by periods (or halves), high scorers (with first and last names) and some highlights from the game. Even a simple box score is better than nothing.

Heck, you can even tweet the info out on Twitter. Including my Twitter handle on it ensures that I’ll get it, since my smartphone will alert me whenever I have a tweet sent to me.

Also, the sooner after a game a result is reported, the better chances of getting into the paper the following day. I know, especially on a Friday night, coaches may have other things on their minds — like where they’re going to dinner and what they’re going to have. But if coaches, athletic directors, team managers or even designated parents can send the results as soon as possible after a game, it greatly enhances the chances of making it in the Daily Journal. Results can be sent to nathan@smdailyjournal.com and julio@smdailyjournal.com. Or, if you want to send me a Tweet, I can be reached @checkkthissoutt.com — double “k,” double “s” and double “t.” I know, it’s a lame handle, but that’s what I went with.

Oh, and one other thing, the Daily Journal does not work with any other newspaper on the Peninsula or their reporters. We are the one of the few independently owned newspapers in the Bay Area.

In other words, the Daily Journal sports department does not work with Simi Lee.

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If you look at this week’s boys’ basketball schedule, you’ll notice Half Moon Bay and El Camino will face off at Oracle Arena, home of the Golden State Warriors, at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday.

That is not a misprint. In fact, it’s the second year in a row the Cougars will play a PAL game at Oracle. Last year, Half Moon Bay easily beat Westmoor 51-33.

There are some concessions the teams will have to make. Number one is the pregame routine. The teams have three hours to play a varsity and frosh-soph game, but the arena will not open until right around noon, so the teams will have 10 to 15 minutes of warmup time.

The schools must also buy an allotment of 200 tickets, which are then resold at the schools. A noon game on Wednesday is not a prime time to draw a lot of students or even parents.

But the negatives are far outweighed by the positives. The biggest being an opportunity to play on a professional court. I’ll go ahead and say this will be the only time the players on these teams will get a chance to do that.

Plus, the teams and their fans get to stay for that night’s Denver Nuggets-Warriors game, which will be broadcast on ESPN.

As for the game itself, you can probably expect an easy Half Moon Bay victory. The Cougars are the favorites to win the PAL’s North Division title and have won their first two league games by an average of 41 points. El Camino, on the other hand, has lost its first two PAL games by a combined six points to a pair of teams that are a combined 9-18.

But who knows? Maybe the Colts can come out and stun the Cougars. It is, after all, high school sports and if there is anything I have learned in my nearly two decades of covering prep sports — including my 13th season on the Peninsula — it’s that the better team does not always win.

It usually does, however.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. He can also be followed on Twitter @CheckkThissOutt.