3 local teams hit the road for state playoffs
| Wednesday, Mar 10 2010 10:44 AM
Last Updated Wednesday, Mar 10 2010 10:44 PM
The California high school basketball pond is still rippling after Ridgeview's upset of North Hollywood-Harvard-Westlake on Tuesday.
But there's no rest for the excited: The Wolf Pack practiced Wednesday in preperation for its next game, at 7 tonight at No. 1 seed Gardena-Serra in the Southern Cal quarterfinals.
First, though, back to Tuesday. Senior guard Robert Roberts scored 36 points, 10 in the final 1:30 as the Wolf Pack erased a six-point deficit and stunned Harvard-Westlake, the state's No. 15 team according to Cal Hi Sports, 79-74 at Ridgeview in the first round of the Division III CIF State Basketball Championships.
Cal Hi Sports called the result "the upset of the night in the state" and catapulted Ridgeview to No. 7 in the state Division III rankings and No. 20 in Southern California overall.
"I've been around some pretty big wins in my 25 years," said coach Bobby Sharp, who won a state title as an assistant at Foothill. "This was on the level of some of those wins. It's earth-shattering to some people in Southern California that Harvard-Westlake lost to a team from the Central Section. Everybody's buzzing, trying to figure out how they're going to get down to the game. Everybody is just kind of floating on air."
Harvard-Westlake had been ranked No. 10 in the state just two weeks ago. Now, the Wolf Pack (26-5) has an even stiffer test: Serra (30-2), the state's No. 4 overall team and No. 1 D-III team.
"They're big across the front line and athletic," Sharp said, "so we've got our hands full. But I don't think anybody gave us much of a chance against Harvard-Westlake. ... We feel like we have that level of guy too, that we have Division I (college) type players that can match up athletically with anybody we play. We're going to go and play with a lot of confidence. Anything can happen."
Ridgeview's boys aren't the only local teams still alive, nor are they the only team with a tough task tonight. Liberty's boys, fresh off a 69-49 victory against Alhambra-Mark Keppel in Tuesday's first round, visit Division II's top seed, Rialto-Eisenhower (28-5).
"I'm sure they're going to be really good," Liberty coach Andy Hicks said. "When you play a team like that, you understand they're going to score and make plays. You have to really remain focused and try to keep the tempo to your liking."
The Patriots (23-8) will have the services of senior point guard Sam Marcus, who split his lip and bruised his tailbone in a collision Tuesday. Marcus returned to the game in the second half but needed five stitches to seal his inner lip Tuesday night. He averaged 14.2 points and 7 assists a game in SEYL play.
"He looks back to normal," Hicks said. "He's fine."
Also playing at 7 tonight are Stockdale's girls (28-4), who visit Division I's top seed, Long Beach-Poly. The Jackrabbits (28-2) are ranked No. 4 in the state and No. 1 in Division I by Cal Hi Sports, and they ended Stockdale's season last year in this round with a 76-47 win.
"Obviously, they're supposed to win this game, but maybe they take us a little lightly, play a 'C' game and hey, we're in the basketball game," Stockdale co-coach Charles Stewart said.
Kessler named state's player of week
Cal Hi Sports also had love for Centennial junior Cody Kessler, even though the Golden Hawks saw their season end in the Central Section Division I semifinals last week.
Kessler was named the website's State Boys Athlete of the Week after scoring 47 points in a quarterfinal win at Fresno-Bullard and 39 more in a 79-71 loss to Clovis-Buchanan. He finished the season with per-game averages of 29.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists.
Despite the basketball accolades, though, Kessler plans on playing football in college. To that end, he also has picked up two more scholarship offers, from Pittsburgh and Washington State, to add to Fresno State and New Mexico State.
10th-grader Wallace picks up Fresno State offer
Bakersfield High sophomore Tyrone Wallace has been offered a basketball scholarship from Fresno State, BHS coach Greg Burt confirmed.
Wallace also has drawn interest from numerous Pac-10 Conference schools, Burt said, including USC, which came to watch Drillers practices this year.
Wallace, a 6-foot-2 guard, averaged 20.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.8 steals a game for Bakersfield, which lost 73-68 to Clovis East in the section semifinals.
