Basketball, soccer seasons not over

As CCS basketball champs, the Menlo-Atherton and Mills girls’ teams, along with the Sacred Heart Prep and Priory boys’ squads, earned automatic bids to Nor Cals.

CCS finalists — the Half Moon Bay boys, and Notre Dame-Belmont and Aragon girls — also were seeded into the regional brackets.

The four county basketball teams that made the Open Division — the Half Moon Bay and Priory girls, along with the M-A and Serra boys — also got spots in Nor Cal just for playing in the Open Division.

Additionally, three other county teams were given at-large bids by making it to the CCS semis — the Carlmont and Burlingame boys, and the Hillsdale girls.

The Nor Cal basketball brackets begin play Tuesday, with Nor Cal finals slated for March 10 and state championship games March 13 at the Golden One Center in Sacramento.

Nor Cal soccer, on the other hand, is much more limited, as each bracket gets only eight teams instead of the 16 basketball gets. As such, only section champions, or teams that advanced to the semifinals of Division I, along with a handful of teams that finished second, are eligible for the Nor Cal tournament.

Boys’ CCS Division V champ Crystal and girls’ Division IV winner Menlo School will both host first-round games Tuesday. The Gryphons, the No. 2 seed in Division V, will host No. 7 Woodland Christian. The Lady Knights, the No. 3 seed in Division IV, will host No. 6 Terra Linda-San Rafael. Both games are at 3 p.m.

The Hillsdale boys, which advanced to the CCS Division I semifinals to earn a Nor Cal spot, also got a home game as the No. 3 seed in Division II and will take on a storied North Coast Section power in No. 6 Berkeley at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Nor Cal regional finals are scheduled for Saturday, with the first-ever CIF state championship soccer games being played March 13 in Sacramento.

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There were two soccer teams trying to complete unbeaten regular-season and CCS seasons and both came up short.

The biggest upset in CCS soccer came in the Division I final when No. 7 Mountain View was taking on a top-seeded Alvarez team looking to complete a perfect 23-0-0 run this year.

But the Spartans denied the Golden Eagles that honor as Mountain View knocked off Alvarez 2-1 in overtime Friday night at Santa Clara University.

It was a similar situation on the girls’ side as top-seeded St. Francis was tying to complete an unbeaten regular season and CCS run. Like Alvarez, the Lancers were dealt their first loss of the season when they were upended in the Division I final, falling 4-3 in penalty kicks to second-seeded Los Gatos.

Despite the losses, both Alvarez and St. Francis earned spots in the Nor Cal brackets by virtue of making the CCS Division I semifinals.

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The Mitty girls’ basketball team, once again, ran roughshod over the competition in capturing its fifth straight Open Division championship and the 34th CCS title in program history.

And once again, it wasn’t even close. The Monarchs absolutely destroyed its three opponents in pool play to advance to the final.

You would think that maybe the championship game would be competitive, but nope. The Monarchs destroyed third-seeded Riordan, scoring the most points in bracket in a 90-31 Mitty win. In going 4-0 in Open play, Mitty outscored its four opponents by an average of 81-26.

The funny thing, as dominant as Mitty has been over the decades in Northern California, the Monarchs haven’t been able to translate that to matching state championship hardware. Mitty has made the CIF Open Division finals each of the last four years and have lost all four, including three in a row to Etiwanda.

But don’t feel too sorry for the Monarchs. They have won five state titles, the last coming in the DII final in 2012, but they are 0-5 in state Open Division finals since 2013.

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The Serra rugby team closed out its regular season this past Saturday with a 47-19 thumping of Bishop O’Dowd as the Padres finished 7-1 on the season. Carson Strain scored three tries for Serra against the Dragons, as the Padres built a 35-7 lead at halftime.

They will play O’Dowd in the Rugby Norcal Single School championship game at 10 a.m. Saturday in Oakland.

Despite beating the Dragons in the regular-season finale, Bishop O’Dowd will host the title game because they had more points than Serra, based on the fact the Dragons played two more games than the Padres.

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Mikey Ballout, a 2026 Serra graduate, just wrapped up a strong freshman year for the University of Toronto men’s basketball team.

A true freshman, Ballout made the Ontario University Athletics’ All-Rookie team after starting 22 of 25 games and averaging 11.2 points per game.

He had his coming-out party Nov. 8 when he played all 40 minutes and in 93-83 win over McMaster, scoring a season-high 32 points, one of three times he went over the 20-point mark on the season. He was 12 for 19 from the field, including 6 of 12 from behind the 3-point arc. Ballout had 12 games this season when he made three or more 3s.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.