The San Diego Section winter sports playoffs wrapped up last weekend with teams competing for basketball and soccer championships in their respective divisions.
The weekend before that it was girls water polo, two weekends ago it was boys wrestling. The weekend before that it was girls wrestling.
As usual, East County teams and student-athletes were in the thick of things with eight teams advancing to division championship games in three sports and four teams finishing as CIF champions in two sports.
- No. 1-seeded Monte Vista (21-6-3) won the Division III boys soccer championship with a 3-2 kicks-from-the-mark victory over sixth-seeded Olympian (18-5-6).
- No. 2-seeded Granite Hills (17-3-5) won the Division II girls soccer championship with a 1-0 upset win over top-seeded Francis Parker (17-2).
- No. 2-seeded Mt. Miguel (23-8) won the Division IV boys basketball championship with a power-packed 70-48 victory over top-seeded Southwest (28- 3).
- No. 9-seeded Steele Canyon (11-3-8) defeated seventh-seeded Point Loma, 3-2, in a kicks-from-the-mark tiebreaker to reign supreme in the Division I boys soccer playoffs.
- No. 2-seeded Grossmont (23- 8) recorded a runner-up finish to top-seeded Cathedral Catholic (21-11) by a 51-45 score in the Division I girls basketball championship game.
- No. 3-seeded Monte Vista (23-9) finished runner-up in the Division III boys basketball championship game following a 50-36 setback to top-seeded Olympian (28-3).
- No. 2 River Valley Charter (9-11) finished runner-up in the Division V-AA girls soccer bracket following a 1-0 loss to top-seeded Tri-City Christian (13-5).
- No. 1 Santana finished runner-up in Division I girls water polo playoffs following a 4-3 double-overtime loss to No. 6 Coronado in the division championship game.
Qualified teams will now embark on winning regional and state championships.
Granite Hills finished on top of the Grossmont Hills League with an 8-0-2 league mark ahead of West Hills (6-2-2) and Steele Canyon (5-3-2).
The Lady Eagles scored a clean sheet through their three section playoff games: 5-0 over 10th-seeded Mission Bay in the quarterfinals, 2-0 over third-seeded Mt. Carmel in the semifinals on Feb. 21 and 1-0 over top-seeded Francis Parker in the championship game on Feb. 23.
Mission Bay had upset seventh-seeded Steele Canyon, 3-2 in a KFM tiebreaker in the opening round but fell behind Granite Hills 2-0 at halftime in the teams’ quarterfinal match-up. The Lady Eagles then soared over the Lady Bucs (9-5- 4) with three second-half goals.
Granite Hills scored one goal in each half to subdue Mt. Carmel (17-3-3) in the semifinals. The Lady Eagles scored a second-half goal to seal the division championship.
The Lady Eagles, riding a seven-match winning streak, were set to play at top-seeded Granada Hills Charter (13-3-3) in Tuesday’s opening round of the Division III regional playoffs.
Tuesday’s winners were set to advance to Thursday’s regional semifinals. The regional championship game is Saturday, Mach 2.
Steele Canyon upset foes in each round to wear this year’s Division I crown to become this year’s bracket buster. The Cougars, who finished runner-up in the Grossmont Hills League standings to Monte Vista, kicked off the playoff with a 5-4 KFM victory over eighth-seeded University City in the opening round after the teams had played to a 1-1 overtime standoff.
Steele Canyon then pulled off a 1-0 upset of top-seeded Cathedral Catholic in the quarterfinals on a goal by Matti Guzman. The Cougars then clawed out a 1-0 overtime victory over fourth-seeded Westview in the semifinals on a goal by Ashton Cederwall.
Elder Ibarra recorded both shutout wins.
They saved the best for last.
In the championship game, Steele Canyon rallied from a 1-0 deficit against the seventh-seeded Pointers after Point Loma’s Ethan Denny managed to knock in a bounding ball off a corner kick in the 48th minute.
But a collision between Point Loma goalkeeper Owen Purvis and a Cougar defender created a loose ball scenario and Cederwall pounced to the ball to tie the game, 1-1, for Steele Canyon.
There was no scoring in overtime and the game proceeded to the shootout tiebreaker.
The Cougars took a 3-2 lead in the fifth round of the climactic shootout whereupon Ibarra proved to be the man on spot when he made the game-winning save on a shot by Pointer Max Flores to secure the championship game victory.
Cederwall, Jordan Rojas and Sam Thornton each scored in the shootout while Ibarra blocked two of five shots.
The Cougars pulled off upsets in all four divisional playoff games.
“I’m just so proud of this team and this program as a whole,” Steele Canyon coach Justin Johnson said. “Four straight CIF finals appearances, moving up a division every year and bringing home two titles and a state title in the process. Such a testament to how hard these guys work, the trust they have in each other and in the system.
“We’ve heard a lot of doubt coming from the outside, especially this year, but these guys love it, they feed off it and it just motivates them to be that much better. So proud and excited to continue the work that we’re doing here.”
Steele Canyon was rewarded with a trip to Newport Harbor (19-5-1) in Tuesday’s opening round of the regional playoffs.
Getting their kicks
Monte Vista finished on top of the Grossmont Hills League table with a 7-2-1 league record ahead of runner-up Steele Canyon (6-2-2). It proved to be a very competitive league as both the Monarchs and Cougars went on to capture section titles in their respective divisions.
“We’ve had a competitive season,” Monte Vista head coach Antonio Levenant said. “We’ve beaten some Division I teams, teams that have gone Open through Division II. I don’t think we’ve lost to a Division I team this year. We still have a young team – about 70 percent underclassmen. The core of our team is our junior class. We have two freshmen who start.”
Monte Vista entered the division championship game playing like a champion with 94 goals scored against 38 allowed. Top scorers included senior Jesua Castillo with 34 goals, junior Anthony Lillo-Granger with 20 goals and junior Abdiel Castillo with 15 goals.
“We’re a very fast-paced team,” Levenant said. “We like to attack.”
The sixth-seeded Olympian Eagles discovered that five minutes into last Friday’s championship game as Jesua Castillo scored the opening goal just five minutes into the match.
Abdiel Castillo screamed a shot just under the crossbar with five minutes to play in the first half to put the Monarchs ahead 2-1. But the Eagles (18-5-6) managed to slow the game down in the second half and take the Grossmont Hills League champions to a KFM shootout.
Issac Gonzalez scored what proved to be the game-winning shootout goal while goalkeeper Gerardo Alfaro Paez made a leaping save on Olympian’s fnal shooter to hand Monte Vista a 3-2 win and the school’s first CIF boys soccer championship.
The Monarchs received the No. 4 seed in the Division IV regional playoffs and were set to host No. 5 Upland (15-4-4) in Tuesday’s opening round.
Mt. Miguel traded in its Division IV football championship for a division basketball title after rushing past the top-seeded Southwest Raiders (28-3).
The Matadors won seven of their final eight games to bounce into the division championship game on Feb. 22.
Mt. Miguel eliminated 15th-seeded Sweetwater, 76-57, in the opening round on Feb. 14, then defeated seventh-seeded Clairemont, 89-69, in the quarterfinals on Feb. 17. The Matadors then gored third-seeded High Tech High Chula Vista, 80-72, in the semifinals on Feb. 20.
Mt. Miguel finished 8-2 in Grossmont Hills League play to finish runner-up to crosstown rival Monte Vista in the league standings.
Senior Thaddeus Boudreaux earned honors as the MaxPreps Player of the Game in both the semifinal win over High Tech High Chula Vista (23-5) and in the final against Southwest.
Boudreaux had 24 points and six rebounds in the win over HTH-CV. He poured in 26 points, including three three-pointers, and grabbed 10 rebounds in the championship game.
The Matadors took control early in the final with a 15-8 first quarter lead while expanding it to 37-20 at halftime. Both teams off-set one another with 15 points in the third quarter as Mt. Miguel carried a 17-point lead into the final quarter.
The Matadors out-scored the Raiders 18-13 in the fourth quarter to finish up with a 22-point victory. Senior Mekhi Sydney dropped in 19 points to finish second in team scoring on the night behind Boudreaux.
