California Southern Regionals: Division I, Round 2
The top eight seeds in the State Southern Division I regional each won first-round games Tuesday night. Should any of the top four seeds fall in the second round Thursday night, it would be almost “mild” relative to the…
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Continue ReadingThe top eight seeds in the State Southern Division I regional each won first-round games Tuesday night.
Should any of the top four seeds fall in the second round Thursday night, it would be almost “mild” relative to the “upset strata”.
Only one sectional champion is still involved: No. 4 seed Santa Margarita, which won the CIF Southern Section Division I championship by knocking off Chino Hills (No. 6 in this bracket) Saturday at Cal Baptist University in Riverside.
The Eagles will play host (at 6 o’clock; the other games tip an hour later) to San Diego Open runner-up Foothills Christian of El Cajon.
Santa Margarita presents one of the biggest and best frontcourts in high school by way of three college-bound seniors: Jake Kyman (UCLA), Max Agbonkpolo (USC) and Shengzhe Li (BYU).
The Knights counter with a short collective frontcourt but it, too, is quite gifted – notably in 6-foot-5 Derrick Carter-Hollinger, one of the five-best players in San Diego and bound for the University of Montana.
The contest in the upper bracket pits Birmingham (which finished fourth in the L.A. City Open playoffs before knocking off Harvard-Westlake Tuesday) at No. 1 seed Etiwanda (which was one of the Southern Section’s eight Open Division teams but was moved to D-I for regional play).
No. 2 seed Rancho Verde (another Southern Section Open club that slid to D-I for this competition) plays hosts to another L.A. City Open participant, third-place finisher Washington Prep.
And, in perhaps the most compelling game in any division in Southern California Thursday night, Chino Hills is at No. 3 St. John Bosco – in a “rematch”, of sorts, of the 2018 Division I final at Long Beach State that was won by Chino Hills by way of a frantic fourth-quarter rally.
The host Braves don’t have a “big” who matches up against the Huskies’ Onyeka Okongwu. But, then, again, few on the high school level anywhere do.
But St. John Bosco is especially deep in skilled (and reasonably sized) perimeter players, notably by way of seniors Christian James (PICTURED) and Joshua Adoh.