LAKEPORT .— From 16 teams to four.
The North Coast Section Division V boys basketball tournament is down to the final four, which includes two private schools that compete in the same league and have faced each other three times this season, and two public schools separated by roughly 237 miles.
And that field will be cut to two finalists on Wednesday night following semifinal games between No. 1 seed Stuart Hall (26-4) and No. 5 Hoopa (21-9), and No. 2 University (21-9) and No. 3 Clear Lake (26-2). Winners advance to the Division V championship round on Saturday while the losers take the weekend off and return to action in next week’s NorCal portion of the CIF State Championships.
Both semifinals are taking place in San Francisco. Stuart Hall, the undefeated Bay Counties-West champion, hosts Hoopa, the undefeated Humboldt-Del Norte Little 4 winner, at 7:30 p.m. at Kezar Pavilion. University, a three-time loser to Stuart Hall although all three games were close, is the BCL-West runner-up and hosts Clear Lake, the undefeated NCL I champion, at 7 p.m. at University High School in San Francisco.
While the seedings favor Stuart Hall and University, Clear Lake and Hoopa wouldn’t mind spoiling the party and creating something almost unheard of in today’s NCS playoffs — a sectional final between public school teams. Clear Lake enters play against University having won 17 straight and is trying to win the school’s first sectional title in boys basketball since 1989. Hoopa has knocked off private schools in its first two playoff games, ending the seasons of Urban of San Francisco and Head-Royce of Oakland, a team it lost to during the regular season. Clear Lake beat St. Helena 58-39 in the first round and private school Sonoma Academy 69-53 in the quarterfinals on Saturday night.
University is Clear Lake’s first road opponent in the playoffs. The teams had no common opponents during the regular season although No. 1 seed Stuart Hall did beat Fort Bragg 79-35 way back on Nov. 30 in the Redwood Classic at Boonville. Clear Lake defeated Fort Bragg twice in league play — 75-47 and 54-46.
The highest surviving seed among the semifinal winners hosts the sectional championship game. If Hoopa and Clear Lake pull off upsets, Clear Lake would host.
On Sunday, the CIF will announce NorCal and SoCal seedings/pairings for the state championship tournaments in all divisions. Keep in mind that teams can be moved up to another division during the pairings process, which is what happened to Kelseyville volleyball last fall. A Division IV team during the section playoffs, the Knights were moved up to Division III for the NorCals.
Clear Lake’s 26 wins are the most by a Cardinals boys team in a single season since the Record-Bee began keeping official records in 1984. Clear Lake’s girls went 28-2 in 1988-89 while reaching the NorCal championship game. Back then, only section winners and section runner-up teams advanced to the NorCals. Clear Lake did so as a section champion. In fact, both Clear Lake’s varsity boys and girls won section titles in 1989 and went on to host first-round NorCal games. The girls beat Gustine in the first half of a doubleheader at the Clear Lake High gym while the boys were upset by Quincy. For the boys, one of their section wins that year was a 62-52 victory over University.
