A swing of emotions

She was one of only two seniors to be honored and she brought her extended family to help celebrate the occasion, including mom, Jenna, uncle Brian Carson, an assistant coach at Serra, along with her grandparents. All the Carsons walked down the aisle as Lexi Carson was preparing for the final home quad of her high school career.

The only two missing were her older brothers, JD and Brady, who both played at Hillsdale and are currently playing college ball — JD Carson is a senior at Bethany College-Kansas, while Brady Carson is a sophomore at Skyline.

As the teams went through a second-up session, I asked Coach Carson how long he would hang around to watch his daughter play, with his Bears’ squad scheduled to host Carlmont about 90 minutes later.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll have to check Waze (to see what traffic is like).”

Lexi Carson went on to help lead the Knights to a 46-43 win, as she scored 13 of her 15 points in the second half.

I’m sure Coach Carson would have rather stayed to watch his daughter play if he knew the Bears’ collective hearts would be ripped out against Carlmont.

The last time the Bears and Scots met, it was in Belmont and M-A beat Carlmont with a layup at the buzzer. Friday night, the Scots returned the favor in Atherton, knocking down the go-ahead 3-pointer with two seconds left as Carlmont pulled into a first-place tie with M-A with three games left on the Bay Division schedule.

***

Saturday morning was the 5K memorial run for Quin White, a Hillsdale senior who died this past November of an epileptic seizure.

Friday night, both the Hillsdale and Half Moon Bay girls’ teams were wearing white T-shirts with the name “Quin” scripted on the front in purple.

“How nice,” I thought. “Hillsdale got HMB to go in on the honor.”

But then it occurred to me: White grew up in Half Moon Bay, although he attended St. Gregory’s in San Mateo before his family moved to San Mateo in 2021 and he attended Hillsdale.

In all, White impacted two Peninsula communities.

***

Longtime readers know that I listen to a lot of sport talk on the radio (I’m not a “podcast” guy, so all my intake is through terrestrial media), but I didn’t take the dog for a walk Friday morning so I missed the big news: Bonta Hill is leaving 95.7 The Game for an expanded, full-time role at NBC Bay Area, which broadcasts the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco Giants.

Hill was formerly the co-host of The Game’s “Morning Roast,” alongside Joe Shasky, since 2020. Hill has basically done it all in sports media here in the Bay Area. A San Francisco native, Hill cut his teeth at City College of San Mateo and San Francisco State University.

I worked alongside him for a couple of seasons as he was covering prep football for the San Francisco Examiner. He eventually moved into radio broadcasting, getting his start at KNBR, working with host Greg Papa — where Hill could barely get in a word edgewise working with the loquacious Papa.

It’s when he moved to The Game that he really found his voice and he and Shasky became the best morning show in the Bay Area — and it wasn’t really close.

He then became the pre- and post-game host for the Warriors on NBC Bay Area and now his role is expanding there.

Good for Hill. It is nice to see a local guy stay local. Wonder how long that will last before a national gig comes calling.

Nathan Mollat is in his 24th year covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.