Half Moon Bay senior Delaney Dorwin holds the CIF Northern California Division IV girls’ basketball regional championship trophy and the game ball, while teammates, from left, Jade Villalobos, Xochitl Nieves, Sydney Mendes, Chloe Harrington and Paige Haberman celebrate with her after the Cougars’ 49-47 win over Lowell.
The Half Moon Bay High School girls’ basketball team is flying high today. It’s soaring in rare air.
By defeating Lowell of San Francisco, 49-47, in the California Interscholastic Federation’s Northern California Division IV regional championship game Tuesday night on the Coastside, the Cougars advance to the CIF Division IV state title game Saturday morning.
The opponent from Southern California will be Whitney of Cerritos (27-9). The contest is set for 10 a.m. at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
Half Moon Bay (23-7) is the first Central Coast Section public school girls’ basketball program to reach a state final in any division since Monta Vista of Cupertino did it in 1992. The drought has lasted 33 years.
Four other CCS public school teams have appeared in state championship games as well, all of them in the 1980s, the first decade of the CIF girls’ basketball playoffs. They are:
• Lynbrook-San Jose, 1981.
• Los Gatos, 1982.
• Los Gatos, 1984.
• Burlingame, 1988.
Only Burlingame has succeeded in winning a girls’ state crown on the public school side of the CCS equation. The section’s other 30 girls’ state basketball titles have been won by private school programs.
Half Moon Bay got into the tournament as a late at-large selection representing the Peninsula Athletic League’s Bay Division where the Cougars tied with Mills for third place in the final standings.
The Cougars played all four of their Nor Cal playoff games at home in its own gym where they went 15-1 this season. Now, the team has a chance to make some CCS (and local) public school basketball history on the road this weekend.
The girls have their coastal community behind them as the trek to Sacramento looms. Others are paying attention as well.
Steve Picchi, who coached that Burlingame team to a 36-2 record and a CIF Division III championship 37 years ago, is one of them.
Picchi, who now resides in Modesto, said he is pleased to see Half Moon Bay on the doorstep of a significant achievement. He said Half Moon Bay’s appearance in the Division IV title game is a long time coming. Too long.
“This is great for Half Moon Bay and the PAL,” Picchi said. “It would be very cool for the Cougars to win this week.”
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