When it comes to girls’ sports, the Peninsula Athletic League’s Bay Division is among the best in the Central Coast Section. Bay Division softball has been a powerhouse for the last 20 years, Bay Division volleyball is just as strong and, over the last decade, Bay Division soccer has reached the elite level.
You can now add PAL South Division girls’ basketball to the list. Eight of the 10 teams in the PAL South qualified for the playoffs — not that big a deal when you consider a winning record, in either league or overall, gets a team into the postseason.
Of those eight teams, however, five are still alive after Tuesday’s quarterfinal round and that includes a pair of No. 1 seeds, Hillsdale in Division II and Capuchino in Division III. Also in the mix are Aragon and Burlingame, seeded No. 2 and 3, respectively, in Division II, while Mills is the sixth seed in Division III.
The PAL is guaranteed at least one team in Saturday’s championship game as Aragon and Burlingame will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday in a DII semifinal matchup in San Mateo. The Panthers had to battle to a 63-57 win over No. 6 Oak Grove Tuesday, but the second-seeded Dons and top-seeded Knights had little trouble in their quarterfinal matches — Aragon buried No. 9 Pioneer, 54-26, while Hillsdale routed No. 8 Christopher, 69-45.
If you want to know how strong the PAL South girls’ basketball division is, look no further than Mills, which is seeded sixth in the Division III tournament.
The Vikings finished league play in a four-way tie for sixth place with a 4-8 record, losing six of their last seven PAL games heading into the playoffs.
That 4-8 record was not good enough to get the Vikings into the playoffs. They did so by virtue of going 5-3 in the non-league portion of the schedule.
Hardly a world-beating record.
But as they say, just get into the postseason and take your chances and right now, Mills is playing with house money because the Vikings have absolutely destroyed their first two CCS oppponents as they find themselves in the semifinals for the second time in three years — advancing to the CCS Division III championship game in 2020.
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Mills, as the No. 6 seed, received a bye into the second round of the CCS bracket and in their 2022 postseason debut Saturday, starched No. 11 Monterey, 51-16.
Tuesday night, the Vikings had to make the trek to Soquel to take on an always-strong Soquel Knights squad, which is seeded third.
Well, was seeded third as the Vikings pulled off one of the upsets of the tournament, dominating the Knights to the tune of 60-25.
The Vikings will make a return to the Santa Cruz coast when they go on the road at No. 2 Santa Cruz at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The Cardinals beat No. 7 El Camino in the quarterfinals, 66-47.
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When Adhir Ravipati stepped down as Menlo-Atherton football coach following the Bears’ 2019 state championship, he did so because his work-life balance was out of whack.
He never strayed too far from the game, however. A product manager at Dropbox, Ravipati continued off-season workouts with student-athletes looking to prepare for the college recruiting process, while also serving in a quality-control capacity for the College of San Mateo football program. Last season, he joined the College of San Mateo coaching staff as the team’s quarterbacks coach.
But it still wasn’t enough. Tuesday, Ravipati announced on social media that he was back in a head coaching position, taking over the Riordan program in San Francisco.
“I joined the staff at CSM and thought if I ever left, it would be for a job at the DI level,” Ravipati wrote on Twitter. “Being back on the field made me feel whole again, but I found I couldn’t invest myself into coaching the way I wanted to and the coaching part of my life was now what was out of alignment. As I tried to figure out what that new alignment in my life looked like, a very unique opportunity came forward that brought everything together with the way I wanted and needed in my life at this time.
“I decided to take it and will be the next head football coach at Riordan.”
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
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