At least four local teams are playing in Tournament Championship Games tonight.
No. 5 North Bay vs. East Bay Championship Game
It is called the East Bay-North Bay Girls challenge and one from each area will be in the championship game.
Windsor raised its record to 6-1, pulling away in the fourth quarter to defeat Casa Grande 42-30. Kerianne Noonan scored 12 points to lead the way.
Windsor will meet California in the championship game at 2:30.
The third place game is between Casa Grande and Maria Carrillo.
Maria Carrillo lost a tough one to California 42-39.
No. 4 Montgomery in Title Game
Alec Raven had another big game scoring 33 points as Montgomery held off Oakland Tech 63-59. Montgomery, who is 4-1 on the season, had a ten point lead in the first half.
Montgomery will meet Freedom in the championship game today. Freedom is 5-2 on the season and is hosting the tournament.
No. 3 Santa Rosa Girls Stay Undefeated
There might be something special brewing at Santa Rosa.
The defending NBL Girls regular season champions raised its record to 5-0 by putting on a 22-2 third quarter blitz and defeated San Ramon Valley 69-42. Kylie Oden scored 19 and Morgan Bertsch added 18.
San Ramon Valley went into the game 5-1 and even though this is well into the future, is a team Santa Rosa could see in the Division 1 playoffs.
Santa Rosa’s closest win was 56-43 over St. Francis in the championship game of Terra Nova tournament last weekend. Terra Nova is a Division 2 team and is 5-2.
Santa Rosa isn’t in a tournament this weekend but do have back to back home games. Tonight they will play Novato.
No. 2 SRJC makes Kris Kringle Championship Game
The SRJC Men didn’t get off to the greatest start as a 3-6 record will attest to.
The home cooking of the Kris Kringle Classic has done wonders.
After opening up with its biggest offensive output of the season in a 101-62 win over Shasta, they followed that up with an even more impressive 80-55 win over No. 10 Los Medanos in a game they had a 20 point first half lead.
Alec Kobre had another big night with 18 points, all of them on three point shots. In the two wins Kobre, who is averaging 17 a game, has scored 40 points and has hit six 3 point shots in each game.
SRJC will meet Yuba City in the championship game tonight at 8 pm. Yuba City is 6-3 on the season.
No. 1 Casa Grande Goes For Own Tourney Title
This is the eighth annual Brett Callan Memorial Tournament. The host team Casa Grande is going to the championship game for sixth time. The Gauchos advanced by defeating former SCL rival Analy 60-48.
You can analyze a lot of things about this game. Like while Analy dominated the boards early, it was offset by the Tigers turning the ball over and Casa Grande didn’t.
But the difference of the game was simple. Casa Grande had senior guard Cetrick Yeanay and Analy didn’t.
Yeanay scored a career high 39 points and that was after he got off to a slow start. Slow meaning it took him four minutes to score. Once he did the dam broke in a big way.
His first hoop gave Casa Grande a 9-4 lead. That started him on a streak of scoring 25 of Casa Grande’s next 29 points to give the Gauchos a 36-26 halftime lead. During the run he hit four 3 point shots, had another traditional three point play and also hit all three of his free throws.
The biggest part of the run was at the beginning of the second quarter. Despite eight first quarter turnovers, Analy was hanging around and scored the last five points of the first quarter to make it a 16-12 game. In the first two and a half minutes of the second quarter, Yeanay scored all the points of a 10-2 run to give Casa Grande a 26-14 lead.
Analy didn’t go away. They cut the lead to six in the second half but didn’t get closer. They had another chance to cut it to six with five minutes left, but missed a dunk which Casa Grande converted a fast break basket, by Yeaney of course, to get the lead to ten. That started a seven point run to put it away.
Will Analy was turning the ball over, eleven times total in the first half and twenty three for the game, Casa Grande didn’t commit a turnover until the first minute of the third quarter.
Casa Grande will meet Fairfield in the championship game tonight at 6 pm. Casa Grande is 1-4 in championship games in this tournament, winning it in 2010. This will be the sixth time they have been in the championship game in the last seven years.
Before that Analy will meet Las Lomas in the third place game at 4:30.
Earlier Windsor rallied in the second half to defeat Petaluma 49-38. The Jaquars will meet Washington of San Francisco in the Consolation Final at 3 pm. Petaluma meets Alameda in the Seventh Place game at 1:30.
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net