San Mateo is still alive

“Once you get into the (CCS) semifinals, there is a chance at getting an at-large bid (to the Northern California regional tournament),” Lui said. “I knew Thursday we had a chance, but a couple of things helped us out.”

Turns out, the Bearcats have at least one more game to play as they were the final team from the CCS to make it into the Nor Cal bracket.

Lui said CCS administrators contacted him prior to the Bearcats’ quarterfinal win over Wilcox, telling him that teams that got to the semifinals went into the Nor Cal pool for consideration. The CCS gets 21 bids to the various Nor Cal brackets – but only three at-large bids.

All three of those at-large bids went to San Mateo County teams.

Lui was pretty sure that Half Moon Bay and Sacred Heart Prep would get two of those three at-large bids — which they did. That left a 20-win San Mateo team, among others, hoping for that third golden ticket.

Lui said Los Gatos’ loss in the quarterfinals of the Division II bracket helped his team, as did an early-season win over Milpitas.

Not known as a basketball power, the Trojans certainly were this year, earning a spot in the CCS Open Division where they went 2-1 and notched wins over Bellarmine and Serra — which only elevated San Mateo’s win over Milpitas.

Lui said following his team’s 51-47 win over the Trojans Dec. 20, his team stormed the court in celebration, which had his friend on the Milpitas coaching staff telling him they acted like they had just won a CCS title.

“I think our Milpitas win carried us a long way. That’s a pretty big signature win,” Lui said. “I owe (Milpitas) a gift. I didn’t think they would make this much noise.”

Lui knew his team had secured the Nor Cal bid Friday morning, a little more than 12 hours after the loss to Westmont. He had already told his team that a decision on Nor Cal berths would be made Friday morning and called for a team meeting during lunch that day.

“I think some of the kids didn’t think we had a shot,” Lui said. “I tried to slow play it. … They were kind of in shock at first (when I told them we were in). Once it settled in, everyone was really excited.”

The only thing Lui didn’t know was what seed the Bearcats would get in which bracket. They had to wait until Sunday afternoon to find out they had received the No. 13 seed in Division IV and will be on the road at No. 4 Palma-Salinas for a first-round game at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

This will be San Mateo’s second-ever Nor Cal appearance. The Bearcats lost in the 1999 CCS Division II finals to Riordan, but rebounded to win their first-round Nor Cal game, 74-53 over Enterprise-Redding.

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The Burlingame and Capuchino baseball teams will be hitting the big time this season — at least for one game. The Panthers and Mustangs will square off at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 12, at Oracle Park in San Francisco, home of the San Francisco Giants.

Burlingame’s booster club president received an email from the Giants about the program that allows such games and passed it on to Burlingame baseball manager Shawn Scott, said Burlingame athletic director John Philipopoulos.

“It made all the sense to make it happen against Cap, who is a friendly rival. Everything aligned the right way,” he said.

Burlingame-Capuchino is the final game of a tripleheader that day. Union City’s James Logan will face off against Newark Memorial at noon, two rivals from the Mission Valley Athletic League, followed by Tamalpais-Petaluma at 3 p.m.

There are some caveats, however. One, all schools must sell a certain number of tickets, but the only way to get a ticket to the high school game is to buy a ticket to one of three Giants’ games — April 8 vs the Cincinnati Reds, June 4 vs the San Diego Padres or June 7 vs the Atlanta Braves. Buy a ticket to any one of those three Giants games gives you a complimentary ticket to the high school series. Tickets can be purchased through the Giants’ website.

To be clear: You can’t just purchase a ticket to the high school game. You must buy a ticket to one of those three Giants games prior to April 12.

Philipopoulos said he wasn’t sure how many tickets needed to be purchased.

“A thousand? I don’t know if that’s a doable number or a crazy number. But we have a really good community here. I’m sure we’ll be able to pull this together,” Philipopoulos said.

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When I saw Mills was playing Mitty in the Circle of Champions tournament finals at the Salinas Sports Complex Saturday, I figured it would be a Monarchs’ rout.

After all, Mitty is a 14-time Central Coast Section champion and a perennial contender for the section title, but the Monarchs have not won a section crown since 2019.

So I couldn’t have been the only one to be stunned to see the Vikings beat Mitty, 5-3, to win the tournament championship, which puts the rest of the Peninsula Athletic League and the CCS on notice.

Mills went 4-0 for the tournament, beating Notre Dame-SJ 6-5, Westmont 8-1 and Branham 8-0 before knocking off Mitty. Granted, the Monarchs might not be a full strength, but even a weakened Mitty lineup had enough firepower to go 3-1 in the tournament, including a 9-3 win over Aragon.

Mills proved it was a team on the rise last season, winning the Ocean Division title. This year’s squad features only four seniors and five freshmen. And the Vikings aren’t at full strength either, with a couple of key players, Sofia Kwan and Luna Mengel-Yoshimura, still playing basketball.

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Here’s an interesting little fact about Mitty that I just found out. Everyone is familiar with the resume of Monarchs’ girls’ basketball head coach Sue Phillips, who has led Mitty to 25 CCS and three state championships since 1993.

But did you know she’s not a bad softball coach, either? She guided the Monarchs to CCS titles in 1998 and 2000, as well.

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.