County teams, athletes enjoy playoff success

For starters, there were a pair of state champions that came out of the Peninsula, and they are neighboring schools. The Sacred Heart Prep boys’ basketball team captured the CIF state Division IV title, with Daily Journal Boy’s Basketball Player of the Year Alex Osterloh hitting a pair of free throws in the waning seconds to beat San Juan Hills, 47-45.

That was followed by the Menlo School boys’ tennis team capturing its first state title, beating Harvard-Westlake to finish the season a perfect 29-0.

Not all sports have state championships — not yet, anyway. Baseball and softball state finals are coming next season and the CIF is trying to find a way to align Nor Cal and So Cal girls’ water polo.

That being said, there were five teams that won Nor Cal titles, with the biggest surprises being Half Moon Bay baseball and Sequoia girls’ basketball.

Additionally, there were four other teams that advanced to Nor Cal title games.

But county teams and athletes really made their presence felt at the Central Coast Section level. There were 25 teams that won CCS crowns, four of which came from cross country, which has five divisions in both boys’ and girls’ races. The Menlo-Atherton, Mills and Menlo School boys’ teams won at DI, DIII and DV, respectively. The Crystal girls’ team flew the flag for the county, winning the DV championship.

County teams dominated the first-ever CCS flag football championships, with Menlo winning the Open crown, San Mateo winning Division I and Priory capturing the Division II title.

Volleyball saw Aragon (DII) and Summit Shasta (DV) win crowns. In girls’ basketball, M-A and Mills won DI and DIII, respectively, while the SHP and Priory boys were victorious in DIV and DV.

The Crystal boys’ and Menlo girls’ soccer teams took home section titles; the Menlo baseball team joined HMB as a CCS champ; the Aragon boys won their first-ever volleyball title, while Notre Dame-Belmont won its first softball crown since 2009.

Meanwhile, there were 17 teams who received the most unwanted trophy in CCS — for second place, certainly nothing of which to be ashamed. Seventeen teams finished second in the various CCS brackets.

There were also 15 county athletes to win individual titles in cross country, swimming, and track and field. Carlmont’s Daniela Cuadros, Burlingame’s Stella Newman, Nueva’s Fitzpatrick and Crystal’s Anna Salter all won individual CCS cross country titles.

Woodside’s Clara Young was a double gold medal winner in swimming, earning the title as fastest female swimmer in the section by winning the 50- and 100-yard freestyle races. She finished third in both events at the CIF State Meet.

Lucas Rowe became the first player from Carlmont to win the CCS tennis singles crown, the first winner from the Peninsula Athletic League since M-A’s Alec Haley won it in 2010.

Nueva’s Fitzpatrick bookended his CCS cross country title with a championship in the 3,200 on the track.

There were 20 more individual athletes who finished second and a dozen more who took third in various CCS events. This list doesn’t include those athletes who finished on podiums, but not in a top-3 spot. The list would be just too unruly at that point.

Suffice to say, San Mateo County athletes and teams showed up and showed out during the 2025-26 season.

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Just a couple loose ends to tie up following the Half Moon Bay baseball team’s run to the Northern California Division IV championship.

In Tuesday’s opening-round win over Sonoma Valley, there was a lot of Cougars’ love given to one of the Dragons’ assistant coaches, including a number of hugs and long handshakes.

Seemed weird. Turns out, it was former longtime Half Moon Bay manager Tony Manganini, who has retired to Sonoma.

“It was the weirdest thing in the history of the world that they made it this far and we made it this far,” current Half Moon Bay manager Brian Anderson said during an interview last week. Anderson took over the varsity program beginning the 2016-17 season after years as the JV coach.

“He’s helped me for at least 10 years here, until basically last year.”

It didn’t take long for Manganini to find himself back in a dugout. Anderson said Manganini was riding his bike around his new neighborhood and came upon the school. He introduced himself to the manager and next thing you, Maganini is on the Dragons’ staff.

“He’s a baseball lifer,” Anderson said. “I don’t think he’ll ever give it up.”

And then there was Saturday’s championship game opponent: Livermore. In a crazy bit of irony, I literally live about a mile from the Livermore High School campus. And yet, I don’t know a single coach, player or fan.

But the baseball team appears to have a bit of an identity crisis. Livermore’s mascot is the Cowboys and that was scripted across the chest of the players’ uniforms Saturday.

But on the back, where a last name normally would be (if a school so chose to do that) was the term, “Los Vaqueros,” Spanish for “cowboys.”

And just to add to the confusion, the team had the public address announcer refer to them as the “‘Pokes,” short for “cowpokes,” which is a nickname for cowboys.

So the Cowboys used a nickname for a nickname.

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CCS baseball teams can arguably lay claim to being the second-best section in Northern California, with only the Sac-Joaquin Section having a better Nor Cal showing.

CCS and SJS teams met in three of the five Nor Cal finals, with the CCS going 1-2. Valley Christian hammered Elk Grove 12-0 in the Division I final, but Mitty came up short against Franklin-Elk Grove, 5-1, in the Division II championship game, while Menlo fell to Roseville 4-2 in the Division III title game.

In all, though, there were CCS teams in all five Nor Cal games, with Half Moon Bay joining Valley Christian as CCS Nor Cal champs.

The CCS’ Pacific Grove found itself taking on the Central Section’s Minarets in the Division V final. And it was a wild one, with the Minarets walking off with 21-20 win.

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.